Today in Labor History December 24, 1913: Seventy-three people in Calumet, Michigan died in the "Calumet Massacre," including 59 kids. The majority were Finns, Croats and Slovenes. The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was having a Christmas party for striking copper miners at the Italian Hall. About 500 miners and their family members were at the party. Someone yelled "Fire!" and dozens were trampled in the panic. Goons and scabs had barred the doors, trapping people inside, exacerbating the injuries and deaths. The person who yelled “fire” was never identified, but many strikers believed it was a company guard. WFM president Charles Moyer claimed that the person was wearing the badge of the Citizen’s Alliance, an anti-union, pro-boss vigilante group that routinely terrorized the miners and their families. In the aftermath, some Alliance members formed a relief committee and collected $25,000 for the survivors’ families, but they refused the money. Committee members believed that Moyer had forbidden his members from accepting the money. So, they shot and kidnapped him, sending him out of town by train, and forbidding him from ever returning to Michigan.
There were over 15,000 miners working in Michigan’s Copper Country at the time of the strike. 9,000 had already signed up with the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). They were striking for union recognition, as well as better wages and hours, and safer working conditions. They typically had to work 10-12 hours per day, six days per week, including children. Additionally, they were forced to live in Company Towns, in which everything was owned by the mine owners. Rent, heating fuel, medical care, and even the tools of the trade, were deducted from the workers’ paychecks, leaving them little, to nothing, for themselves. The mine owners used Pinkertons, and several other private detective agencies as strike breakers and agents provocateur. In addition to those who died in the Calumet Hall disaster, another 15-20 were killed by cops and private cops. The strike continued until April, 1914, when the union was driven out of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The Copper Country strike in Michigan occurred concurrently with the Colorado Minefield War, with the infamous Ludlow Massacre occurring just days after the Michigan strike ended, in which National Guards and private cops massacred over a dozen unarmed women and children.
Prior to the Copper Country strike, in 1905, Moyer and WFM organizer, Big Bill Haywood were falsely charged with the murder of former Idaho governor, Frank Steunenberg, a long-time enemy of the WFM. Famed Pinkerton detective James McParland, who had previously infiltrated and helped destroy the WBA mining union in Pennsylvania (1875), ran the investigation. McParland (using his pseudonym, James McKenna) is also the villain in my first two novels: “Anywhere But Schuylkill” and “Red Hot Summer in the Big Smoke.” Famed union attorney Clarence Darrow successfully defended Haywood and Moyer. Mary Doria Russell wrote about the Calumet disaster in her 2019 novel, “The Women of Copper Country.”
You can read my full article on the Ludlow Massacre here:
Michael Dunn
The Ludlow Massacre - Michael Dunn
Share via: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More On April 20, 1914 the Colorado National Guard and private security guards opened fire on a mining camp in...
And my article on the Pinkertons here:
Michael Dunn
Union Busting and the Pinkertons - Michael Dunn
Union Busting by the Pinkertons was key to the rapid accumulation of wealth by the robber barons like Gowen, Carnegie, Rockefeller
And my article on the WFM here:
Michael Dunn
The Western Federation of Miners - Michael Dunn
The Western Federation of Miners formed today, May 13, 1893, in Butte, Montana.
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