Age of Anarchy

[Rsmyth]

Roger, being from Chicago was the Haymarket Riot any better known there than in the rest of the country?

The Haymarket started as a supposedly peaceful speech on worker conditions in the U.S. When police were sent in to break up the demonstration, a bomb was thrown with policemen killed. The bomber was never captured or even named but eight radical activists were sentenced to death – most of those were not even present that evening.

History, here, has pretty much ignored this event but the rest of the world took notice and it was responsible for today’s 8-hour workday.

[L Verge]

Rich - This is an interesting topic, especially when I suspect that most Americans think of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as modern events. Everything is very quiet at work today (we're closed to tours until mid-January), so I did a little googling.

In addition to the Haymarket affair, there was a 1910 explosion at the Los Angeles Times building by two union activists; a 1916 suitcase bomb explosion at a San Francisco parade supporting our entry into WWI; the discovery in 1917 of a bomb that was taken to a police station in Minneapolis where it exploded and killed nine people; the 1920 TNT bombing on Wall Street via a horse-drawn wagon (forerunner of our car bombs!); the first bombing of an airplane in 1933, a Boeing 247 over Indiana via a nitroglycerine bomb; the 1940 Mad Bomber of New York, who blamed Consolidated Edison for his medical problems and planted bombs all around the city and eventually detonated 22 of them. He was finally caught in 1956, committed to a mental asylum and released in 1973.

I also remember, within the past forty years or so, bomb attacks by Puerto Rican nationalists at New York's historic Fraunces Tavern, an explosion in our U.S. Capitol and another one in the Statue of Liberty. And these are all on U.S. soil without even considering the more modern attacks on U.S. buildings and people abroad. Pretty scary stuff and reason to be wary of radicals.

Perhaps the Haymarket Riot produced a good result in an 8-hour workday, but at what cost? These other attacks appear to have achieved nothing except loss of life.

[RJNorton]

(12-15-2017 10:16 AM)Rsmyth Wrote:  Roger, being from Chicago was the Haymarket Riot any better known there than in the rest of the country?

The Haymarket started as a supposedly peaceful speech on worker conditions in the U.S. When police were sent in to break up the demonstration, a bomb was thrown with policemen killed. The bomber was never captured or even named but eight radical activists were sentenced to death – most of those were not even present that evening.

History, here, has pretty much ignored this event but the rest of the world took notice and it was responsible for today’s 8-hour workday.

Rich, my recollection is that the first time I heard of this event was in high school. I do not think it was better known in Chicago than in other parts of the country. Abraham Lincoln was certainly stressed more in Illinois schools, but I do not recall that the Haymarket Riot received special treatment.