| Book Review | Labour History, 92 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story Of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America, Pantheon Books, New York, 2006. pp. ix + 383. US $25.00 cloth.

On the night of 4 May 1886 a labour rally was held in Chicago's Haymarket Square in protest against the killing of six workers who had been shot and attacked by police at a picket line on the previous day. As the rally was about to break up 176 police marched into the Square, and ordered the crowd to disperse. A bomb was thrown at the police. It exploded, the police opened fire and mayhem ensued. Seven policemen were killed and a number injured. Four civilians died and more than 30 were injured (pp. 190–91).

In the following days the police arrested leading Chicago radicals/anarchists who were seen as being responsible for the bomb throwing. Even though there was no evidence that any of those charged had thrown the bomb, in fact several were not even in attendance at the Haymarket, in the hysteria of these times which was flamed by the press, they were found guilty of the crime of conspiracy. Following appeals and other legal manoeuvres, four were subsequently hanged. A fifth, Louis Lingg, was either killed or committed suicide in jail (the record on this is unclear). The four hanged men, August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel and Adolph Fischer, have gone down in history, not just in America but also Europe and Latin America, as martyrs in the cause of labour. They were convicted on the basis of their writings and speeches, rather than their deeds; for being anarchists who urged workers to defend themselves against attack.

James Green in Death in the Haymarket provides an extensive and highly readable account of the events of the night of 4 May 1886 and the subsequent trial. His account is situated in terms of the evolution of American industrial relations from the end of the Civil War to the New Deal of the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s and the history of Chicago to the present day.

Chicago was a boom town and a magnet for both capital and labour, especially immigrants, after the Civil War. It was the site of early struggles between the captains of industry and worker/union organisations over the terms and conditions of employment. A major cause of workers was the establishment of an eight hour day. Attempts by workers to utilise strikes to enhance their position, or more importantly, to resist arbitrary reductions imposed upon them, were countered by the use of scab labour and violence by either state militias and/or private armies funded by employers. Green presents information on various such disputes which occurred in Chicago. In addition, he cites research that there have been at least 700 industrial disputes in America where deaths were recorded (p. 309).

Green portrays the Haymarket incident and the subsequent case as a pivotal moment in the history of American industrial relations. The violence of the night of 4 May 1886 was seen by more traditional trade union leaders, such as Samuel Gompers, as harming the house of labour. The peculiar feature, however, which characterises this moment in American history is, to quote Albert Parsons, the 'judicial murder' of four leading labour activists. Green maintains

The Haymarket case refuses to die because it involves so many troubling questions about the causes of violent conflict and the limits of free speech, about the justice of conspiracy trials and the fairness of the death penalty and about the treatment of immigrants, particularly foreign-born radicals, by the police, the newspapers and the courts. And perhaps most troubling of all, the Haymarket case challenged, like no other episode in the nineteenth century, the image of the United States as a classless society with liberty and justice for all (p. 12).

This supposition may be true. However, the Haymarket case was just one example of a seemingly endless stream of violent acts perpetuated against workers in the long and bloody history that has been American industrial relations. Green documents similar events which occurred in Chicago prior to, and after, Haymarket. He also provides information on other violent acts which have occurred in other parts of America, and various red scares which have excited the American mind and resulted in legislative changes that have attacked, reduced and ignored civil rights protections contained in the American Constitution. Attempts by workers to improve and/or defend their lot in this period were brutally put down and resisted by employers. It is difficult to see how what happened at Haymarket made any difference to the course of American history and its industrial relations. The one constant of the period examined by Green is that employers always strenuously, if not ruthlessly, resisted unions and workers when they raised their heads above the parapet.

The major contribution of Death in the Haymarket is the way in which Green has recreated industrial, social and political life in Chicago. He provides readers with insights into the dynamic that existed between labour and capital during these years. Union and worker organisations enhanced the social life of workers from a variety of ethnic and immigrant backgrounds. They were a source of emotional and social support in a harsh economic environment. Green documents the evolution and developments in the ideas of leading labour activists, both within unions and various political parties and movements. He also examines how the captains of industry reacted to challenges to their authority, how they were aided and abetted by various arms of the state and the press with their support of Americans and hostility to immigrants. Green's account of the various acts of violence that occurred during these years, especially his description of the 'judicial murder' of four men makes for chilling reading. Death in the Haymarket is highly recommended.


University of Melbourne	BRAHAM DABSCHECK

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