A Working-class Primer on the 1913-14 Michigan Copper Strike
Michigan’s 1913–1914 Copper Strike, beginning on July 23, 1913, and lasting for nine long months, was a bitter conflict between the burgeoning strength of organized labor, and the entrenched power of American industrial capital. Heavily capitalized copper companies and the men that ran them dug in their heals to take on an upstart mining union comprised of mostly immigrants workers who had often been in the United States for less than a decade.
Like many of the bloody labor conflicts that came before (and after) there were casualties during the 1913-14 Michigan Strike: striking workers Aloiz “Louie” Tijan and Steve Putrich were shot dead by mining company guards and Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency “gun thugs” in mid-August 1913. Less than a month later and on Labor Day, fourteen-year-old Margaret Fazekas was shot in the back of her head by Houghton County deputy sheriffs. She came within an inch of losing her life. The strike certainly caused bloody class conflict at times, but one event more than any other has come to symbolize the acute bitterness present in the Copper Country during the 1913-14 Copper Country Strike: the Italian Hall tragedy in Calumet, Michigan.
On Christmas Eve at a party for striking mineworkers’ children sponsored by the Calumet local’s Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), disaster struck as the party turned tragic in a few short moments. A call of “Fire!,” a panicked exodus from the second-floor hall, and an utterly horrific loss of life changed the tenor and tone of the already bitter 1913–14 Michigan Copper Strike. In what became known as the Italian Hall Disaster, over 70 people lost their lives; most of which were children. Though attempting to remain neutral throughout the strike, the deaths of more than seventy people on Christmas Eve at Italian Hall caused Michigan Governor Woodbridge N. Ferris to write Charles Moyer, WFM President, “I am at your command for rendering all possible assistance to those stricken down in last night’s awful disaster. All Michigan is in sorrow.”
For more information on the history of the 1913-14 Strike, please click on this link to the "Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan's 1913-14 Copper Strike" on-line exhibit: http://www.1913strike.mtu.edu/index.html
Like many of the bloody labor conflicts that came before (and after) there were casualties during the 1913-14 Michigan Strike: striking workers Aloiz “Louie” Tijan and Steve Putrich were shot dead by mining company guards and Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency “gun thugs” in mid-August 1913. Less than a month later and on Labor Day, fourteen-year-old Margaret Fazekas was shot in the back of her head by Houghton County deputy sheriffs. She came within an inch of losing her life. The strike certainly caused bloody class conflict at times, but one event more than any other has come to symbolize the acute bitterness present in the Copper Country during the 1913-14 Copper Country Strike: the Italian Hall tragedy in Calumet, Michigan.
On Christmas Eve at a party for striking mineworkers’ children sponsored by the Calumet local’s Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), disaster struck as the party turned tragic in a few short moments. A call of “Fire!,” a panicked exodus from the second-floor hall, and an utterly horrific loss of life changed the tenor and tone of the already bitter 1913–14 Michigan Copper Strike. In what became known as the Italian Hall Disaster, over 70 people lost their lives; most of which were children. Though attempting to remain neutral throughout the strike, the deaths of more than seventy people on Christmas Eve at Italian Hall caused Michigan Governor Woodbridge N. Ferris to write Charles Moyer, WFM President, “I am at your command for rendering all possible assistance to those stricken down in last night’s awful disaster. All Michigan is in sorrow.”
For more information on the history of the 1913-14 Strike, please click on this link to the "Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan's 1913-14 Copper Strike" on-line exhibit: http://www.1913strike.mtu.edu/index.html