Following the
Civil War, particularly following the
Long Depression,
industrial production was rapidly expanded in the United States. Chicago was a major industrial center, and tens of thousands of
German and
Bohemian
immigrants were employed at about $1.50 per day. American workers worked on average slightly over 60 hours during a six-day work week. The city became a center for many attempts to organize labor's demands for better working conditions. Employers responded with
anti-union measures, such as
firing and
blacklisting union members;
locking out workers; recruiting
strikebreakers; employing spies, thugs, and
private security forces; and exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers. Business interests were supported by mainstream newspapers and were opposed by the labor and immigrant press. During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations were active. Membership of the
Knights of Labor, which rejected socialism and
radicalism but supported the
eight-hour work day, grew from 70,000 in 1884 to over 700,000 by 1886. In Chicago, the anarchist movement of several thousand, mostly immigrant, workers centered on the German-language newspaper ("Workers' Newspaper"), edited by
August Spies. Other anarchists operated a
militant revolutionary force with an armed section equipped with explosives. Its revolutionary strategy centered around the belief that successful operations against the police and the seizure of major industrial centers would lead to massive public support by workers, start a revolution, destroy
capitalism, and establish a
socialist economy.
May Day parade and strikes In October 1884, a convention held by the
Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become standard, declaring that they resolved that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor, from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations that they so direct their laws". As the chosen date approached,
U.S. labor unions prepared for a
general strike in support of the eight-hour day. Estimates of the number of striking workers across the U.S. range from 300,000 and in
Detroit at 11,000. In
Milwaukee, some 10,000 workers turned out. and there were perhaps twice as many people out on the streets participating in various demonstrations and marches, as, for example, a march by 10,000 men employed in the Chicago
lumber yards. Though participants in these events added up to 80,000, it is disputed whether there was a march of that number down
Michigan Avenue led by
anarchist Albert Parsons, founder of the
International Working People's Association (IWPA), his wife and fellow organizer
Lucy Parsons, and their children. Spies later testified, "I was very indignant. I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement." Outraged by this act of
police violence, local anarchists quickly printed and distributed fliers calling for a rally the following day at
Haymarket Square (also called the Haymarket), which was then a bustling commercial center near the corner of
Randolph Street and Desplaines Street. Printed in German and English, the fliers stated that the police had murdered the strikers on behalf of business interests and urged workers to seek justice. The first fliers contained the words "Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force!" When Spies saw the line, he said he would not speak at the rally unless the words were removed from the flier. All but a few hundred fliers were destroyed, and new fliers were printed without the offending words. More than 20,000 copies were distributed.
Rally at Haymarket Square The rally began peacefully under a light rain on the evening of May 4. Spies, Parsons, and Reverend
Samuel Fielden spoke to a crowd estimated variously at between 600 and 3,000 while standing in an open wagon adjacent to the square on Des Plaines Street. A large number of on-duty police officers watched from nearby. The crowd was so calm that Mayor
Carter Harrison III, who had stopped by to watch, walked home early. Parsons spoke for almost an hour before standing down in favor of the last speaker of the evening, the English-born socialist, anarchist, and labor activist
Methodist pastor Fielden, who delivered a brief ten-minute address. Many of the crowd had already left as the weather was deteriorating.
Bombing and gunfire At about 10:30 pm, just as Fielden was finishing his speech, police arrived en masse, marching in formation towards the speakers' wagon, and ordered the rally to disperse. Fielden insisted that the
meeting was peaceful. Police Inspector John Bonfield proclaimed: A homemade
fragmentation bomb was thrown into the path of the advancing police, where it exploded, killing policeman Mathias J. Degan and severely wounding many of the other policemen. '' on May 5, 1886|left Witnesses maintained that immediately after the bomb blast, there was an exchange of gunshots between police and demonstrators. According to historian Randall David Law, it is unclear who fired the first shot, while Avrich maintains that "nearly all sources agree that it was the police who opened fire", reloaded and then fired again, killing at least four and wounding as many as 70 people. In less than five minutes, the square was empty except for the casualties. According to the May 4
New York Times, demonstrators began firing at the police, who then returned fire. An anonymous police official told the
Chicago Tribune, "A very large number of the police were wounded by each other's revolvers. ... It was every man for himself, and while some got two or three squares away, the rest emptied their revolvers, mainly into each other." In all, seven policemen and at least four workers were killed. Avrich said that most of the police deaths were from police gunfire. Historian
Timothy Messer-Kruse argues that although it is impossible to rule out lethal
friendly fire, several policemen were probably shot by armed protesters.
Police Captain Michael Schaack later wrote that the number of wounded workers was "largely in excess of that on the side of the police". The
Chicago Herald describes a scene of "wild carnage" and estimates at least 50 dead or wounded civilians lay in the streets. It is unclear how many civilians were wounded since many were afraid to seek medical attention, fearing arrest. They found aid where they could.
Aftermath and red scare A harsh anti-union clampdown followed the Haymarket incident, and the Great Upheaval subsided. Employers regained control of their workers, and traditional workdays were restored to ten or more hours per day. There was a massive outpouring of community and business support for the police, and many thousands of dollars were donated to funds for their medical care and to assist their efforts. The entire labor and immigrant community, particularly Germans and Bohemians, came under suspicion. Police raids were carried out on homes and offices of suspected anarchists. Dozens of suspects, many only remotely related to the Haymarket Affair, were arrested. Ignoring legal requirements such as for
search warrants, Chicago police squads subjected the labor activists of Chicago to an eight-week shakedown, ransacking their
meeting halls and places of business. The emphasis was on the speakers at the Haymarket rally and the newspaper . A small group of anarchists was declared to have been engaged in making bombs on the same day as the incident, including round ones like the one used in Haymarket Square. Newspaper reports declared that anarchist agitators were to blame for the riot, a view adopted by an alarmed public. As time passed, press reports and illustrations of the incident became more elaborate. Coverage was national, then international. Among property owners, the press, and other elements of society, a consensus developed that suppression of anarchist agitation was necessary while for their part, union organizations such as The Knights of Labor and
craft unions were quick to disassociate themselves from the anarchist movement and to repudiate violent tactics as self-defeating. Many workers, on the other hand, believed that industry-hired men of the
Pinkerton agency were responsible because of the agency's tactic of secretly infiltrating labor groups and its sometimes violent methods of strike breaking. ==Legal proceedings==