Mccormick reaper11/28/2023 ![]() The German immigrant had been giving a speech to strikers a short distance from the factory, and he had witnessed police open fire on workers. ![]() The Revenge flyer printed shortly before the Haymarket Riot.Īnarchist leader August Spies was among the many people left fuming by the McCormick melee. Within minutes, several strikers were wounded and at least two were killed. On May 3, striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Works rushed the factory during a shift change and began fighting with non-union “scabs.” Police arrived and leapt into the fray, attacking workers with clubs and firing their revolvers. Police and private Pinkerton guards stood ready to suppress the strike, and while the May 1 march proceeded without incident, the uneasy truce soon collapsed. The May Day protests attracted a wide swath of supporters including immigrant laborers and radical anarchists, some of whom had previously preached for violent revolution using dynamite. “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!” “We’re summoning our forces from shipyard, shop and mill,” they sang. On May 1, tens of thousands of workers walked out on their jobs and marched down Michigan Avenue in solidarity with the movement. ![]() In concert with the trade unions, the city’s labor class organized a general strike to push for higher wages and an eight-hour workday. Chicago-then the fastest growing city in the United States-was the nerve center of the country’s workers’ movement, and the spring of 1886 marked one of its most ambitious protests to date. The explosion in Haymarket Square came during a period of nationwide labor upheaval.
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