Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, the production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Speaker 1: If you've been listening to our show for a long time,
Speaker 1: you might have noticed the uncanny number of just terrible
Speaker 1: tragedies we've covered that have happened right around Christmas. There's
Speaker 1: the Iroquois Theater fire, and the Richmond Theater fire, and
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree ship that sank in like Michigan, and
Speaker 1: the disappearance of the Solder children after their family home
Speaker 1: caught fire. We would probably see a similar pattern of
Speaker 1: tragedies if we picked just any random date and looked
Speaker 1: at the stuff from right around it. But the proximity
Speaker 1: to major holidays for all of these always just makes
Speaker 1: them seem particularly sad. There are so many others of
Speaker 1: these that we've never talked about on the show. But
Speaker 1: while I was looking through our listeners suggestion list to
Speaker 1: try to figure out what I wanted to talk about next,
Speaker 1: one in particular struck me. It is the Italian Hall disaster,
Speaker 1: which was suggested by listener Mark long enough ago at
Speaker 1: this point that it's in the upper third of the list,
Speaker 1: which means it was a long time ago. This disaster
Speaker 1: happened in Michigan on December in a town that's now
Speaker 1: known as Calumet, but was called Red Jacket at the
Speaker 1: time for some reason. All of those prior tragedies that
Speaker 1: I listed off a minute ago are all episodes that
Speaker 1: I researched. So when I found this one, I told
Speaker 1: Holly I didn't know if I had the stomach for
Speaker 1: another Christmas tragedy, But even as I tried to move
Speaker 1: on to other topics, I just couldn't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: this one. So I decided to go ahead and do it,
Speaker 1: just not to have the episode come out right around
Speaker 1: the anniversary off when it had actually happened, which this
Speaker 1: year is roughly at the same time as both Christmas
Speaker 1: and Hanukah. You just keep picking the sad ones, Tracy.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I'm over here, like you'll go
Speaker 1: out um. The Italian Hall disaster happened during a strike
Speaker 1: in Michigan's Copper Country, which lasted from the summer of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen to the early spring of nineteen fourteen. And
Speaker 1: Copper Country is on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That's the northernmost
Speaker 1: part of the state, particularly concentrated on the Kiwana Peninsula.
Speaker 1: Native people knew that there was copper in the area
Speaker 1: long before this, but people of European descent learned about
Speaker 1: it in the eighteen forties. That discovery, kind of in
Speaker 1: quotation marks, is often credited to Samuel O Nap or
Speaker 1: someone who worked for him. In eighteen forty seven, they
Speaker 1: found pits that Native people had excavated for copper, possibly
Speaker 1: going all the way back to the prehistoric mound building
Speaker 1: peoples who lived in the area. These ancient pits became
Speaker 1: the sites of many of Michigan's first underground copper mines.
Speaker 1: As Michigan's copper mining industry grew, it had a lot
Speaker 1: of the same issues as other mining industries in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. The industry operated on a system
Speaker 1: of paternalism. Caller Country was remote, so mining companies built
Speaker 1: entire towns to try to attract and retain workers. If
Speaker 1: you worked in a copper mine, it was very likely
Speaker 1: that your home, your children's school, the hospital, the stores,
Speaker 1: and everything else was owned by the mind. Although the
Speaker 1: mine companies usually framed this as a mark of their
Speaker 1: generosity and care toward their workers. It was also a
Speaker 1: way to keep people in line. If you got in
Speaker 1: trouble at work, the mine could restrict the services and
Speaker 1: facilities that you could access in your off hours. If
Speaker 1: you got fired, the mind could evict you from your home,
Speaker 1: and if you were killed on the job, it was
Speaker 1: entirely possible that your family would be evicted immediately so
Speaker 1: that your home could be used by your replacement. Mining
Speaker 1: in general was also very dangerous, and copper mining was
Speaker 1: particularly so. On average, every week someone died in Michigan's
Speaker 1: copper mines, and at least ten other people were seriously injured.
Speaker 1: Every year, roughly one out of every two hundred copper
Speaker 1: mine workers died. Apart from these safe the issues, working
Speaker 1: conditions in the mind were just difficult. The minds had
Speaker 1: to be very deep in order to get to the copper,
Speaker 1: and without electricity, the illumination was mostly from candles and lamps,
Speaker 1: so workers were deep underground and almost total darkness for
Speaker 1: ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week.
Speaker 1: Pay was also very low, particularly in the jobs that
Speaker 1: mostly involved physical labor, such as trammers who pushed loaded
Speaker 1: carts of or through the mind generally along a track.
Speaker 1: In addition to being low, the pay for these jobs
Speaker 1: was often unfair. Trammers were paid by the pound for
Speaker 1: how much material they moved, but most of the minds
Speaker 1: did not have scales, so they're pay basically boiled down
Speaker 1: to a manager's best guess at how much they had
Speaker 1: hauled based on like a visual assessment. This combination of
Speaker 1: factors meant that most of the people working Underground and
Speaker 1: Michigan's Copper Minds were recent immigrants to the United States,
Speaker 1: and they came from several parts of Europe, including England, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland,
Speaker 1: Croatia and Slovenia. Coworkers often didn't speak the same language,
Speaker 1: and job assignments were made by ethnicity, with some ethnicities
Speaker 1: disproportionately getting the least prestigious jobs. For example, Cornish immigrants
Speaker 1: often became managers, with Germans and Scandinavians also holding more
Speaker 1: prestigious jobs. Meanwhile, Italians, Fins, and Croatians tended to work
Speaker 1: in jobs that were primarily manual labors, such as being trammers.
Speaker 1: The diversity presented a challenge when organizers started trying to
Speaker 1: establish labor unions in copper country in the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: it wasn't uncommon at all for workers in one mind
Speaker 1: to speak at least five or six different languages among them.
Speaker 1: The Western Federation of Miners, which was established in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, proved to be particularly adept at organizing people
Speaker 1: from different ethnic groups who had different backgrounds and cultures
Speaker 1: and spoke different languages. The w f M brought in
Speaker 1: organizers who could speak to all of these different groups.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen teens, membership in the West During Federation
Speaker 1: of Miners was really growing. Among Michigan's copper miners, copper
Speaker 1: was in high demand thanks to things like increasing use
Speaker 1: of electric power, the growing automobile industry, and other industrialization,
Speaker 1: but this increased demand was not trickling down to better
Speaker 1: pay for the workers and the minds. On top of that,
Speaker 1: mine managers were increasingly focused on the idea of scientific management,
Speaker 1: or using scientific principles to improve workplace efficiency and reduce
Speaker 1: the need for labor. One innovation that came out of
Speaker 1: this and was widely criticized by mine workers was the
Speaker 1: one man drill. Before this point, the drills used in
Speaker 1: copper mining required two people to operate. Workers thought that
Speaker 1: the one man drill was going to cause workers to
Speaker 1: lose their jobs, because the idea was that the mining
Speaker 1: companies could cut their workforce by half, not that they
Speaker 1: could run twice as many drills. Yeah, it also seemed
Speaker 1: inherently less safe to go from working as a team
Speaker 1: of two people to working all by yourself. People like,
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong, there won't even be anybody around.
Speaker 1: He can come and help me. Drill operators were regarded
Speaker 1: as skilled laborers in the minds, and before this point
Speaker 1: they had more often aligned themselves with management when there
Speaker 1: were labor disputes, But as the one man drill threatened
Speaker 1: their livelihood and safety, they started to align themselves with
Speaker 1: the people whose pay and working conditions tended to be poorer.
Speaker 1: Mine managers knew that their workers were deeply frustrated by
Speaker 1: all of this. On July, Charles Lawton, general manager of
Speaker 1: Quincy Mining Company, said quote, I do not think it
Speaker 1: would be hard at this time for the WFM to
Speaker 1: call a strike with a hurrah from one end of
Speaker 1: the copper country to the other. The call for strike
Speaker 1: came not long after, and we're going to get into that.
Speaker 1: After we first paused for a sponsor break. By the
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen thirteen, about nine thousand copper mine workers
Speaker 1: in Michigan had joined the Western Federation of Miners. This
Speaker 1: made the union large enough to try to negotiate on
Speaker 1: these workers behalf. Their demands included better pay, with an
Speaker 1: increase to three dollars and fifty cents a day for
Speaker 1: underground mine workers. That was up from between a dollar
Speaker 1: fifty and two dollars fifty. They also wanted the work
Speaker 1: day reduced to eight hours and for the minds to
Speaker 1: stop the changeover to the one man drill. The workers
Speaker 1: also wanted a formal grievance procedure and recognition of their
Speaker 1: union as their collective bargaining unit. On July fourteen, the
Speaker 1: Western Federation of Miners sent letters to Michigan's mind managers,
Speaker 1: including Calumet and Hecla General manager James McNaughton. Calumet and
Speaker 1: Hecla employed about people, and Red Jacket was one of
Speaker 1: its company towns. This letter outlined the WfMS demands and
Speaker 1: also stated, quote failure to answer will be taken as
Speaker 1: proof that you are not willing to have the matters
Speaker 1: settled peacefully. The mining companies naturally found this language threatening,
Speaker 1: especially since some of the WfMS previous strikes had involved
Speaker 1: violence on both sides. The mining companies were also deeply
Speaker 1: opposed to the idea of negotiating with the union at all,
Speaker 1: and their general perception was that if they made any
Speaker 1: kind of reply to this letter, that would be taken
Speaker 1: as evidence that they recognized the union as valid in
Speaker 1: some way. So neither McNaughton nor any of the other
Speaker 1: mine managers answered this letter. So on July twenty three,
Speaker 1: copper workers went on strike. The union reported that ten
Speaker 1: thousand men had joined the strike, while the mining companies
Speaker 1: reported that that number was more like three thousand. Regardless,
Speaker 1: at least for a time, the striking workers totally shut
Speaker 1: down mine operations, both by refusing to work themselves and
Speaker 1: by physically blocking non striking workers from getting into the mines. Immediately,
Speaker 1: mine owners reported that the striking miners were likely to
Speaker 1: be violent, and they asked for help. Governor Woodbridge Ferris
Speaker 1: started ordering the National Guard go to the peninsula's mining towns,
Speaker 1: starting at about ted am on the morning of There
Speaker 1: is an odd disparity in the accounts from the early
Speaker 1: days of the strike. Accounts from mine operators and the
Speaker 1: National Guard report that the striking workers were terrorizing the
Speaker 1: rest of the population and described the situation as total
Speaker 1: chaos and lawlessness. But in the first weeks of the
Speaker 1: strike there were no fatalities on either side. The National
Speaker 1: Guard were slowly recalled starting in mid August, and in
Speaker 1: the end the only National guardsman killed in connection to
Speaker 1: his duty in Copper Country had died because he was
Speaker 1: kicked by a horse. Yeah, this is contrary to a
Speaker 1: lot of the previous episodes based on like the late
Speaker 1: nineteen early twentieth century, when the National Guard has been
Speaker 1: called out like in almost every story other than this one,
Speaker 1: that has led to extreme violence and many deaths among
Speaker 1: the people who, in theory, the National Guard was being
Speaker 1: sent to protect. So this is an outlier in terms
Speaker 1: of all that. Meanwhile, the mind companies didn't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of incentive to negotiate with the miners or
Speaker 1: to recognize the union. Most of the mining companies had
Speaker 1: a surplus of unsold copper and they had plenty of
Speaker 1: cash on hand, so they weren't in dire straits to
Speaker 1: get this resolved. At the same time, though they didn't
Speaker 1: want to stop production entirely, so they hired replacement workers.
Speaker 1: They started recruiting newly arrived immigrants at port cities on
Speaker 1: the coast and paid for their train ticket to Michigan,
Speaker 1: which was then deducted from their pay once they started working.
Speaker 1: The mine companies also hired several detective agencies, including Wattle
Speaker 1: Mahone detective agency, to help break the strike. They protected
Speaker 1: the replacement workers and generally harassed and intimidated the strikers.
Speaker 1: Most of these men were armed, and some were given
Speaker 1: formal authority by being deputized under the local sheriff. So
Speaker 1: while it's certainly true that there were some instances of
Speaker 1: violence on the part of the striking workers, we're going
Speaker 1: to get to some of that in just a moment.
Speaker 1: These seemed to be individual people's actions which were not
Speaker 1: authorized by the union. Meanwhile, the mining companies had partnered
Speaker 1: with detective agencies to hire an armed force of strikebreakers,
Speaker 1: some of whom had been deputized by the sheriff. On
Speaker 1: August fourteenth, two striking miners were killed after at least
Speaker 1: six strikebreakers opened fire on the boarding house where they
Speaker 1: lived in Ceberville, Michigan. Two different miners had been walking
Speaker 1: back to the boarding house on a path that crossed
Speaker 1: over company property. Deputies had told them to turn around,
Speaker 1: and they didn't because they didn't speak English and didn't
Speaker 1: understand what was being said. When deputies arrived at the
Speaker 1: boarding house to arrest them for having done this, they
Speaker 1: refused to go. That is when the strikebreakers opened fire
Speaker 1: through the windows. At least two other people in the
Speaker 1: house were injured but recovered after this, this led to
Speaker 1: a coroner's inquest that required five different interpreters because the
Speaker 1: witnesses spoke five languages. Four of the strike breakers were convicted,
Speaker 1: a fifth was acquitted, and a sixth fled before the
Speaker 1: trial was over. On Labor Day of nineteen thirteen, Margaret Physicus,
Speaker 1: who was fourteen, was shot in the head while picketing
Speaker 1: after a fight broke out between strikers and strikebreakers. She
Speaker 1: did recover from that. Although a deputized strikebreaker was arrested
Speaker 1: for the shooting, a grand jury declined to charge him
Speaker 1: with any crime. On December seven, and three men were
Speaker 1: murdered at a boarding house in Payinsdale, Michigan, which was
Speaker 1: owned by Thomas Dally, and Dally was one of the victims.
Speaker 1: Several men boarding with Dally were working in the mines
Speaker 1: during the strike. W f A member James Houdah, confessed
Speaker 1: to the crime and others were also charged, but Hoodah
Speaker 1: refused to testify against them. This was definitely an incident
Speaker 1: in which striking miners instigated the violence, in this case
Speaker 1: against men who were working in the mines in spite
Speaker 1: of the strike. Also in December, supporters of Michigan's copper
Speaker 1: mining industry formed the Citizens Alliance. This was another organization
Speaker 1: that was meant to try to break the strike into
Speaker 1: harass and intimidate the striking workers. This organization was funded
Speaker 1: by mine management and about eight thousand people joined it.
Speaker 1: So at the time the winter holidays approached in the
Speaker 1: situation in copper Country was tense. Apart from the multiple
Speaker 1: instances of violence, striking miners had been out of work
Speaker 1: for about five months. They and their families were mostly
Speaker 1: living on donated food and financial assistance from the union,
Speaker 1: although that money was running out. So Annie Cleming, head
Speaker 1: of the Women's Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners,
Speaker 1: decided to hold a Christmas party for the children of
Speaker 1: the striking miners with the hope of raising their spirits Clement,
Speaker 1: whose name you'll also see sometimes spelled as Clemmings. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's that appears in writing in a number of different ways.
Speaker 1: She was known as Big Annie because she was more
Speaker 1: than six feet tall. She was the daughter of Slovenian
Speaker 1: immigrants and was married to a Croatian miner. She had
Speaker 1: been extremely active in the strike up to this point,
Speaker 1: including carrying an American flag and the union's demonstrations and parades,
Speaker 1: and one of these parades she was threatened by an
Speaker 1: armed deputy and she told him, quote, kill me. If
Speaker 1: this flag won't protect me, I'll die with it. For
Speaker 1: this party, she's solicited donations with the hope that each
Speaker 1: child attending could get a small gift like a hat
Speaker 1: or a pair of mittens where a piece of fruit
Speaker 1: or candy. The venue for the party was the Italian
Speaker 1: Hall in Red Jacket, which, as we said earlier, is
Speaker 1: now called Calumet. The Italian Hall was a multi use
Speaker 1: building that belonged to the Italian Mutual Benefit Society. It's
Speaker 1: lower floors housed a saloon and an Atlantic and Pacific
Speaker 1: tea company store, and upstairs was a space that could
Speaker 1: be used as a banquet hall, a meeting room or
Speaker 1: a theater. It was in the upstairs space. The between
Speaker 1: five hundred and seven hundred people gathered for a Christmas
Speaker 1: party on Christmas Eve. During this party, somebody came into
Speaker 1: the hall and shouted fire. Annie Clemicc didn't see or
Speaker 1: smell any smoke, and so she told people to stay
Speaker 1: calm and to stay at the party. Other people probably
Speaker 1: did this as well. But this cry of fire spread
Speaker 1: through the crowd and people panicked and started trying to
Speaker 1: rush through the door and down the stairs. The first
Speaker 1: few dozen people that tried to flee the Italian Hall
Speaker 1: were able to get out, but at some point someone
Speaker 1: tripped and fell, and this started a chain reaction, with
Speaker 1: other people who were also trying to get out falling
Speaker 1: over and onto the people below. The fire department was
Speaker 1: just across the street, and firefighters were on the scene
Speaker 1: almost immediately, but the crush of people at the foot
Speaker 1: of the stairs was so high and so tightly packed
Speaker 1: that they couldn't start a rescue operation from below. They
Speaker 1: had to climb up a fire escape one that people
Speaker 1: in the party either hadn't known about or hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about in the panic to try to escape, and they
Speaker 1: had to work from above, slowly removing people from this
Speaker 1: steep staircase that had just become completely impassable. Exact counts
Speaker 1: vary because of discrepancies in record keeping, but at least
Speaker 1: seventy three people died, mostly from being crushed to death
Speaker 1: or suffocating. More than half of them were finished immigrants
Speaker 1: or people of Finnish descent. About sixty of those victims
Speaker 1: were children. There was no fire, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the aftermath of this tragedy after we take
Speaker 1: a little break and hear from one of our sponsors.
Speaker 1: Immediately after the tragedy in the Italian Hall, reports started
Speaker 1: to spread that this had been a deliberate act of
Speaker 1: violence against the striking miners. Multiple witnesses say they saw
Speaker 1: the person who falsely shouted fire, and that it wasn't
Speaker 1: a miner, but with somebody wearing a Citizens Alliance button
Speaker 1: on his coat. Early reports placed what el Mahones strikebreaker
Speaker 1: Edward Manly in the stairwell after the incident. What el
Speaker 1: Mahones sources said that he had gone into the stairwell
Speaker 1: to try to help, but he was never questioned and
Speaker 1: he disappeared from Calumet not long after. Some deathbed confessions
Speaker 1: were also reported in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: but they were second and third hand. None of those
Speaker 1: were ever verified. The disaster immediately became national news, including
Speaker 1: a front page story in the New York Times on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day, but newspapers in Michigan carried distinctly different accounts
Speaker 1: depending on whether they supported the striking workers or the
Speaker 1: mine management. For example, a Finnish American socialist newspaper called
Speaker 1: two Amius or Worker, published a bilingual, Finish and English
Speaker 1: edition on Christmas Day and that included reports that a
Speaker 1: man with a Citizens Alliance badge and his hat pulled
Speaker 1: down had yelled fire. A headline in this paper on
Speaker 1: the twenty six translated to eighty three murdered. Some of
Speaker 1: the newspaper staff were arrested on December twenty seventh of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen for quote causing a riot. Because of these claims,
Speaker 1: the newspaper was shut down at temporarily, and it eventually
Speaker 1: moved its headquarters to another state. Meanwhile, the Calumet News
Speaker 1: reported on how the Citizens Alliance and security guards from
Speaker 1: Calumet and Hecla were part of the rescue, while not
Speaker 1: mentioning all the miners who were also part of it.
Speaker 1: Papers also reported that w f M president Charlie Moyer
Speaker 1: was financially benefiting from the strike in some way, with
Speaker 1: absolutely no evidence for that claim. Moyer to be clear
Speaker 1: how it checkered past. He had served time in prison
Speaker 1: in Illinois after another man's confession implicated him in a
Speaker 1: string of crimes, including a home invasion and a department
Speaker 1: store burglary. He was also implicated in a December bombing
Speaker 1: that killed former Governor Frank Stunnenberg of Idaho, although that
Speaker 1: case was dismissed after the other accused men were all acquitted.
Speaker 1: People also questioned his leadership in the Copper Country strike.
Speaker 1: He had authorized it even though the people at the
Speaker 1: WFM headquarters were opposed to it, but after the Italian
Speaker 1: Hall incident, Moyer avoided placing blame on any particular person. Instead,
Speaker 1: he began sending numerous telegrams calling for an investigation, saying
Speaker 1: that there was enough about the tragedy that was suspicious
Speaker 1: that it warranted an extra look. The local sheriff and
Speaker 1: several people from mind Management and the Citizens Alliance told
Speaker 1: Moyer to stop writing these telegrams and to issue a
Speaker 1: statement that would absolve the Citizens Alliance of any blame.
Speaker 1: Moyer refused, and his account the sheriff said something to
Speaker 1: him along the lines of then I can't protect you anymore.
Speaker 1: Later that night, several men attacked Moyer and he was
Speaker 1: shot in the back when a pistol discharged as he
Speaker 1: was being beaten with it. The men dragged him to
Speaker 1: the Portage Lake Bridge with a bullet still lodged in
Speaker 1: his back, and threatened to throw him off of it,
Speaker 1: and then they took him to the train depot and
Speaker 1: put him on a train bound for Chicago, threatening to
Speaker 1: kill him if he ever returned. No one was ever
Speaker 1: prosecuted for any of this. On Christmas Day, finished Fatie,
Speaker 1: a grapher John William Nara took pictures of the Italian Hall,
Speaker 1: which continued to be a primary source of information about
Speaker 1: what the scene was like. In the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 1: the tragedy. The coroner held a three day inquest, but
Speaker 1: didn't rule on a cause of death for the people
Speaker 1: who had died in the incident. During the investigation, witnesses
Speaker 1: were required to hear and answer questions in English, regardless
Speaker 1: of what language they actually spoke, and the questioning seemed
Speaker 1: more oriented towards clearing the citizens alliance of suspicion than
Speaker 1: uncovering the truth of what actually happened. A grand jury
Speaker 1: that had been convened to investigate strike crimes also issued
Speaker 1: no indictments in the disaster or in the attack on Mowyer,
Speaker 1: although it indicted Moyer for his organizing on behalf of
Speaker 1: the miners. Congressional hearings into the disaster didn't really go anywhere,
Speaker 1: As was the case with so many other mass tragedies
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on the show before, Calumet was
Speaker 1: not prepared to cope with a disaster of this scale.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a more large enough to help manage all
Speaker 1: the bodies. There weren't enough coffins, especially child sized coffins.
Speaker 1: Help had to be brought in from surrounding communities to
Speaker 1: try to manage it all. Most of the funerals took
Speaker 1: place on December twenty, with all of the churches involved
Speaker 1: coordinating to allow one massive funeral procession through town. That
Speaker 1: procession drew about twenty spectators. Miners had dug into the
Speaker 1: frozen ground for mass graves for most of the victims,
Speaker 1: with twenty two buried in a Catholic cemetery in forty
Speaker 1: four in a Protestant cemetery. The rest of the victims
Speaker 1: were buried in family plots. Although mine management and the
Speaker 1: Citizens Alliance raised money for a victim's fund, Mowyer and
Speaker 1: the w f A refused to take it. They said
Speaker 1: they did not want money, they wanted justice. Moyer also
Speaker 1: said that the union would bury its own dead. Although
Speaker 1: the strike didn't officially end until April of nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: it was more or less over after this. Henry Ford
Speaker 1: was offering people five dollars a day to work on
Speaker 1: his automotive assembly line for work that was far less
Speaker 1: dangerous than working in the copper mines, so a lot
Speaker 1: of people moved to Detroit to work there. We actually
Speaker 1: have several episodes on Henry Ford in our archive for
Speaker 1: folks who would like to know more about the nuance
Speaker 1: on all of that. After the Western Federation of Miners
Speaker 1: voted to cut aid to the striking workers in the
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen fourteen, those who hadn't already left for
Speaker 1: other industries voted to go back to work. They got
Speaker 1: a small pay increase in an eight hour work day,
Speaker 1: but otherwise none of their demands were met. This disaster
Speaker 1: was also part of the end of the Western Federation
Speaker 1: of Miners. The union lost more than half of its
Speaker 1: membership between nineteen thirteen and nineteen sixteen, and the Michigan
Speaker 1: strike depleted its treasury almost entirely. In nineteen sixteen, the
Speaker 1: union reformed as the International Union of Mine Mill and
Speaker 1: Smelter Workers. That union was actually part of our episode
Speaker 1: on the Bisbee deportation. Apart for the calls for justice
Speaker 1: that went unanswered and the immediate aftermath of the tragedy,
Speaker 1: the people of Calumet seemed to mostly want to move on.
Speaker 1: There was no coverage of the disasters one year anniversary
Speaker 1: and local newspapers, and it wasn't something that seemed to
Speaker 1: be widely discussed. That started to change after Ella Reeves Blur,
Speaker 1: known as Mother Bluer, published her autobiography We Are Many
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty. She had been one of the organizers
Speaker 1: that was involved in this strike, and her book included
Speaker 1: an account of the disaster. That account inspired Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: to write his song nineteen thirteen Massacre about the incident.
Speaker 1: He put out that song in nineteen forty one. Because
Speaker 1: the investigation into the disaster was handled so sloppily. It
Speaker 1: is still not clear exactly what happened, and some of
Speaker 1: the details that have become widely remembered are not actually
Speaker 1: supported by the evidence. In some accounts, including Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: song lyrics, supporters of the mind bosses physically stopped people
Speaker 1: from leaving the hall, or they laughed as children fell
Speaker 1: and died. One widely held piece of misinformation and is
Speaker 1: that the doors out of the hall opened the wrong way,
Speaker 1: something that was absolutely true and some of the other
Speaker 1: disasters that we have discussed, but that was not the
Speaker 1: case in the Italian Hall. There are actually photographs that
Speaker 1: show the doors opening outward. It seems very likely that
Speaker 1: the person who shouted fire was opposed to the strike
Speaker 1: and the striking workers and wanted to ruin the party.
Speaker 1: But some people go so far as to conclude that
Speaker 1: their intent wasn't just to harass the miners and their
Speaker 1: families and to spoil their good time, but that it
Speaker 1: was intended to create a fatal stampede on purpose. Because
Speaker 1: there was never a thorough investigation, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: say that conclusively. Big Annie Clemenc eventually moved to Chicago,
Speaker 1: remarried and had a daughter. Her descendants did not know
Speaker 1: about her work as a labor organizer or the Italian
Speaker 1: Hall disaster when they were asked about it. In more
Speaker 1: recent years. She has since been inducted into the Michigan
Speaker 1: Women's Hall of Fame and Labor's International Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Michigan's copper mines went into decline. They started closing in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, with the last closing down in nineteen
Speaker 1: A law passed in two thousand four allowed mining to
Speaker 1: resume in the state, though and Eagle Mine was the
Speaker 1: first one to open under this new law. In Some
Speaker 1: people point to the Italian Hall disaster as the beginning
Speaker 1: of the downward trend in the industry that led to
Speaker 1: its temporary total shutdown, but there was really a lot
Speaker 1: more to it than that. Michigan's deep underground mines were
Speaker 1: expensive and dangerous to operate, and in the nineteen teens
Speaker 1: and beyond they were facing increasing competition from the mines
Speaker 1: in the West and the Southwest, which were a lot
Speaker 1: cheaper to operate. The Italian Hall was placed on the
Speaker 1: National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty, but then
Speaker 1: it was later removed. It was torn down in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, with its sandstone entry arch remaining as a
Speaker 1: memorial for years. That archway had a sign that read
Speaker 1: quote Michigan Historic Site Italian Hall. On December nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: area copper miners had been on strike for five months.
Speaker 1: The miners were fighting for better a shortened work days,
Speaker 1: safer working conditions, and union recognition. That day, during a
Speaker 1: Yule Tide party for the striking miners and their families,
Speaker 1: someone yelled fire. Although there was no fire, seventy three
Speaker 1: persons died while attempting to escape down a stairwell that
Speaker 1: had doors that opened inward. Over half of those who
Speaker 1: died were children between the ages of six and ten.
Speaker 1: The perpetrator of this tragedy was never identified. The strike
Speaker 1: ended in April nineteen fourteen. That wording was edited to
Speaker 1: remove the reference to the inward opening doors. In twelve
Speaker 1: of Michigan Technological University professor and students were part of
Speaker 1: an archaeological study at the side of the Italian Hall.
Speaker 1: This included ground penetrating radar work to determine the building's
Speaker 1: original boundaries. The radar itself was actually on loan from
Speaker 1: the q and Abey Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Office,
Speaker 1: and it was run by the offices archaeologist who also
Speaker 1: donated his time. On Christmas Eve, a granite monument was
Speaker 1: dedicated at the site of the disaster and it lists
Speaker 1: the names of the victims. This site is part of
Speaker 1: the quan On National Historical Park and today the calum
Speaker 1: At Rotary Club puts luminaries at the site each Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: There is one for each victim. For folks who want
Speaker 1: more detail on all of this, Steve Lato has written
Speaker 1: books about it, and there are some talks and articles
Speaker 1: by him in the show notes for this episode on
Speaker 1: our website. I have a couple of pieces of listener
Speaker 1: mail that are overall on us a lighter note because
Speaker 1: they're about television. They're short, so I'm going to read
Speaker 1: both of them. The first one is about television, but
Speaker 1: it's also about a disaster. It is. This is from Tatum.
Speaker 1: Tatum says, Hi, they're a longtime listener, but this is
Speaker 1: my first time writing in. I just thought your listeners
Speaker 1: might want to know that the Netflix series The Crown
Speaker 1: featured the Abervan mining disaster in a recent episode Season
Speaker 1: three episode three. Because I was watching the episode, I
Speaker 1: started to realize that I knew where this story was
Speaker 1: going due to having heard your episode from November. So
Speaker 1: if any of your listeners would like to see what
Speaker 1: the disaster may have looked like as it took place,
Speaker 1: I would recommend checking that out. Uh So, thank you
Speaker 1: Tatum for that. UM. Tatum went on to say some
Speaker 1: kind things about us, but I don't know that every
Speaker 1: single person needs to hear all of that. Yes, we
Speaker 1: talked about that disaster in November. Like that email says,
Speaker 1: that's a little newer than we typically do for Saturday Classics.
Speaker 1: But if folks watched The Crown and thought I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about this disaster, that is something they could
Speaker 1: find in our archive. UM. And then the other quick
Speaker 1: email about television is from Emily. Emily says, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to write a quick thank you for your episode
Speaker 1: on Matthew Hopkins because it combined two of my favorite things,
Speaker 1: your podcast and the book Good Omens by Neil Gaming
Speaker 1: and Terry Pratchett. If you're not familiar, there's a character
Speaker 1: in it named Shadwell who was a seemingly self appointed
Speaker 1: witch Finder sergeant. I was delighted to know that his
Speaker 1: asking at least two characters, how many nipples have you got?
Speaker 1: Was inspired by their real life We're nous slash terrible
Speaker 1: nous of Hopkins. Thanks again for hours of entertainment, Emily,
Speaker 1: Thank you Emily for this note. I love the book
Speaker 1: Good Omens. It's been so long since I've read it that,
Speaker 1: as with many books, the details on a lot of
Speaker 1: it are very fuzzy. So I only got caught up
Speaker 1: on watching the Good Omens series that came out recently
Speaker 1: after we had recorded that episode, and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy. I forgot he was in the book. I
Speaker 1: forgot to I. Um, it's been a long time since
Speaker 1: I've revisited that one. Yeah yeah. I'm currently having the
Speaker 1: same experience watching his Dark Materials, which is a book
Speaker 1: series that I love. But it's been oh, more than
Speaker 1: a decade since I read it. Probably, um, I could
Speaker 1: be that could be too, but big of a number.
Speaker 1: It's been years since I read it, So as I'm
Speaker 1: watching it, I'm like, this is how the book was,
Speaker 1: I don't remember anyway. That's some historically oriented television, not
Speaker 1: his Dark Materials, but the other ones for folks to
Speaker 1: check out if they would like. We are at History
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. If you would like
Speaker 1: to send us an email about this or any other episode,
Speaker 1: that is a new email address if you have not noticed,
Speaker 1: and we are also all over social media at missed
Speaker 1: in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And you can come to our website missed
Speaker 1: in History dot com for the show notes for all
Speaker 1: the episodes that Holly and I have worked on together
Speaker 1: in a searchable archive of every episode ever. And you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
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