Quad Cities
Workers of the farm equipment, arsenal and rail industries are powerfully portrayed in a mural at the Quad Cities International Airport. You can also visit nearby Blackhawk State Park, which was engineered and built by unemployed trades people who were working as members of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.
Cherry
Cherry, IL, is 15 miles north and west of LaSalle, IL. One of the worst mine disasters in our nation's history occurred when 259 workers died in November 1909. This tragedy spurred the strengthening of the regulations for mine safety, the passage of a state workers compensation act and the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. A historical marker off of Route 89 and the remaining pink and gray hill of the mine can be seen just north of the town. Residents also maintain a display at the library on Main Street, and a UMWA monument can be found in the town's cemetery off Interstate 80 at Highway 13.
Ottawa and Peru
A major watch-making industry existed in Ottawa, Elgin and Peru in the first half of the 20th century. Amidst this manufacturing boom, young women who brushed radium-laden paint on clock faces for Radium Dial in Ottawa died of cancer at tragic rates. The factory was demolished and no memorial exists. However, the Westclox factory in Peru, where the dials painted by the radium girls were sent for assembly in the popular "Big Ben" clocks, still stands. The closed plant is on Route 6 and I39.
Seneca
The Illinois & Michigan Canal, completed in 1848, proved to be a boon to the prairie farmers by allowing them to ship their grain to national markets without bringing their products directly to Chicago. The Hogan Grain Elevators built in 1862, at 124 West Williams (off I-80 and Route 6), now serve as a visitors center. Trail markers along the canal tell the story of the Irish, German and Scandinavian builders and workers. You can also visit similar sites in Channahon and Lockport.
Joliet
In addition to its steel industry and limestone, Joliet was the center of wallpaper manufacturing for the world. Now murals for Joliet's workers adorn the walls of the city. The mural devoted to the wallpapering industry can be found at the northwest corner of Michigan and Cass Street. The Joliet Iron Works historic site, where the ruins of the iron-making process can be viewed is on the north side of town, off Columbia Street.
Chicago's Uptown
Edgewater Beach Hotel, 5349 North Sheridan, was originally a lakefront resort, but later housed the Chicago Consumer Cooperative (sponsored by the Congress of Industrial Organizations - the CIO in AFL-CIO), which opened in 1947 to a crowd of 1,200.
4533 North Sheridan, Jobs or Income Now (JOIN) Office: Between 1964 and 1968 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) worked with poor Uptown residents, particularly Appalachian migrants, to build community organizations.
4001 North Clark Street, Graceland Cemetery: Graceland Cemetery includes the gravesites of Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, who pardoned those arrested at Haymarket Square; Allan Pinkerton, founder of the union-busting detective firm; George Pullman, owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company and town of Pullman; and Chicago Mayor Carter Henry Harrison, Sr., ally of the 19th Century labor movement and immigrant communities.
Chicago's Near West Side
Chicago's near west side was one of the first industrial areas of the city and an immigrant portal neighborhood. The area was pivotal during the Great Upheaval in 1877 and the site of conflict at the McCormick Reaper Plant that led to the Haymarket Massacre on May 4, 1886.
618 West Chicago Avenue, Montgomery Ward's Headquarters: On April 26, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent federal troops to take possession of Montgomery Ward's offices in response to the company's failure to adhere to the National War Labor Board's orders to recognize a CIO union.
Chicago's Haymarket Square
151-199 North Des Plaines St., site of the Haymarket Square Massacre: On May 4, 1886, a rally began at Haymarket Square in Chicago near Randolph and Des Plaines Streets. As the rally drew to a close, police were dispatched to disperse the crowd. A homemade bomb exploded and police gunfire erupted, causing fatalities on both sides. Although the bomber was never identified, eight men were indicted and convicted, because their "inflammatory speeches and publications" incited the mob to riot.
On November 11, 1887, at the Criminal Courts Building on Hubbard Street, leaders August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were hanged. Of the other leaders, one committed suicide in prison. Two sentences were reduced to life in prison. One protestor remained jailed, although uncharged.
On June 26, 1893, Governor John P. Altgeld reversed former Governor Richard Oglesby's refusal to pardon and granted a full pardon, saying that the conviction-focused jury was so prejudiced by the judge that a fair trial was impossible.
Chicago's Union Park
Racine and Taylor Streets, formerly the West Side Auditorium: This is the site of the funeral procession for Joe Hill on November 25, 1914. Despite international appeals in his defense, Hill was executed for a murder committed while he was in Salt Lake City. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World brought Hill's body to Chicago and spread his ashes on the graves of the Haymarket Square martyrs.
Southeast corner of Roosevelt and Halsted, formerly the West Side Turner Hall: On January 4, 1874, workers formed the Workingmen's Party of Illinois here. On July 21, 1877, it was the site of a torchlight meeting that marked Chicago's entry into the Great Upheaval, a nationwide uprising of railroad workers.
Southeast corner of Taylor and Des Plaines: This is the site of the O'Leary Cottage, origin of the 1871 Chicago fire, which marked the beginning of the construction boom in Chicago.
Union Park, named in honor of the Federal Union in 1853, was the centerpiece of a wealthy neighborhood on the edge of the city. After the 1871 Chicago Fire, working-class residents began to visit the park and move into the community. By 1930 many of the old homes made up "Union Row," the home of Chicago's labor movement. Today, unions remain along Ashland Avenue.
Washington Boulevard, between Ashland and Ogden Avenues, Statue of Carter Harrison (1825-1893): Carter Harrison was the democratic mayor of Chicago from 1879 to 1887 and from April to October 1893. He built a political coalition along the lines of ethnic and class issues and remained friendly to the working class even during the Haymarket clash. Harrison was assassinated by a frustrated office seeker just before the closing of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
1412 W. Washington, R. C. Wieboldt's Department Store Headquarters: Wieboldt's aimed at union busting through subcontracting and became the target of the Baggage, Parcel, Theatrical and Armored Car Drivers' and Helpers' Union (AFL) strike in 1939.
1340 W. Washington, Plumbers' Union Hall: This has historically been the prominent site of frequent meetings between the Labor Movement and Chicago politicians.
37 S. Ashland Ave., United Electrical Workers: Founded in 1936, the UEW left the CIO in 1949 during the Red Scare. An exterior mural and an interior mural are noteworthy. Inside is a 1970s two-story mural with scenes of labor struggles, which include the UEW history. Outside is a 1997 mural celebrating solidarity with Mexican workers.
1649 W. Adams, UFCW 546 Hall (originally UFCW 100): Heir to Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee. It contained the Beef Boners Clinic, where thousands of workers received medical care over the years.
300 S. Ashland Ave., Teamster City: This complex is home to numerous Chicago Teamster Locals, including Local 705, the nation's largest. On the north side of the building you can see the 1997 UPS Strike mural by Mike Alewitz entitled, "Teamster Power."
333 S. Ashland Ave., UNITE! Hall: Built in 1928 with a library, bowling alley, gymnasium and dental clinic, "Amalgamated Center" was the original home of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which served as a cultural, social and educational center to workers.
Chicago's Pilsen
Beginning in the mid-19th century, the city of Chicago initiated a series of urban development projects that drove thousands of Bohemian immigrants out of what became Lincoln Park and "The Gold Coast" and into a section of the West Side. They named their new home Pilsen, after the second largest city in Bohemia (the Czech Republic). A number of these immigrants arrived in Chicago as anarchists and socialists, and, after experiencing the effects of the recession of 1873, led and participated in a series of strikes and protests.
16th and Halsted, Battle of the Viaduct: On the afternoon of July 26, 1877, Bohemian, German, Swedish, Polish and Irish laborers gathered to protest a violent confrontation that morning between the Chicago German Furniture Workers Union (merged into the Carpenters union) and the combined forces of the Illinois National Guard and the Chicago police. As workers began arriving at the viaduct, they met guardsmen and police officers. Thirty workers died in the clash.
1852 W. 19th St., Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum: Once a fieldhouse in Harrison Park, the museum opened in 1987 and now holds a collection of more than 2,500 political- and labor-themed prints and drawings, which include the works of Diego Rivera, Graciela Iturbide, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo.
1831 Racine, Casa Aztlan: Founded in 1905 as the Howell Neighborhood House, this community center has since been rejuvenated by the Mexican community and is now covered with murals. Between 1970 and 1973, Ray Patlan covered Casa Aztlan with his mural, "Hay Cultura en Nuestra Comunidad" (There is Culture in Our Community), which includes an ode to the Aztecs and pays homage to a number of political and labor struggles
Chicago's Back of the Yards
During the century between the Civil War and the 1960s, the Union Stock Yards (1864) was one of the most important employers in the city, with more than 40,000 workers at their peak. The larger Stock Yard district includes the neighborhoods of Bridgeport, Canaryville and McKinley Park. The working class neighborhood just to the west and south of the yards attracted German, Irish, Lithuanian, Polish, African-American and Mexican immigrants. In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, his famous muckraking novel about this area. From 1919 to 1921, the Stockyards Labor Council (SLC) led a series of strikes for the right to unionize. Although these strikes failed, during the Depression the CIO's Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee largely succeeded. The area was also a center of Progressive Era reform, exemplified by Mary McDowell and the University of Chicago Settlement House. In addition, Saul Alinsky's Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council was a forerunner to later community organizing efforts throughout the U.S.
44th Street and Hermitage, Davis Square Park (1904): This early community recreation center provided free public baths, free lunches and classes for the working-class community. It was the site of rallies for the Stockyard Labor Council. On December 8, 1921, a riot occurred between the police and striking packinghouse workers.
Near 43rd and Loomis, BO Packing Co.: This former Swift Company packing plant is one of the few remaining in the stockyards. At Exchange Avenue and Peoria Street is the Chicago Stockyards Gate, designed by famous Chicago architects Daniel Burnham and George Root.
48th Street and Paulina, Columbia Hall: This tavern and community center was the meeting place for the Stockyards Labor Council, formed in 1917 as an interracial union of lesser skilled packinghouse workers.
4758 S. Marshfield, Sakora's Hall: It housed the Packinghouse Workers' Organizing Committee (PWOC) offices, and was an important site for labor meetings.
Chicago's Loop
Named after the "Loop" of the elevated trains overhead, downtown is Chicago's business and financial center. The Loop represents a vibrant working-class history in, for example, the Marina City Towers (300 N. State St.), built with the pension fund of the Building Service Employee's Union, and originally meant to be low-cost housing for union members. The area also includes Printers Row, once the home of Chicago's vibrant printing trades. Along with the many historical landmarks which dot the downtown landscape, you will find many sites of great importance to the history of the Chicago labor movement.
12 E. Erie, Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters: Founded in Chicago on August 8, 1881, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America became a charter member of the AFL and was the forerunner of today's union. The intersection of Erie and State, officially known as "Carpenters Place," has been home to its headquarters since 1925. The original three-story building was razed and has been replaced with the Union's new home that also includes luxury condo units and a restaurant.
435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago Tribune Tower: Long anti-union, the Chicago Tribune crushed a 1985 strike by members of the Pressmen's Union, the Chicago Typographical Union, the Chicago Mailers' Union and the Chicago Paperhandlers' Union, who rallied at the Tribune Tower.
LaSalle St. at Kinzie, Site of the "Bread Riot": In the winter of 1872-1873, during a period of high unemployment, workers, who gathered to protest for poor relief and food, were forced into a tunnel and beaten by police.
Clark and LaSalle, site of the "Eastland Disaster": On July 24, 1915, workers of Western Electric and their families boarded the S.S. Eastland for a company outing. The ship tragically rolled on its side while still moored to the dock and 844 passengers died.
227-235 W. Lake St. and 173-191 N. Franklin St., Lake and Franklin wholesaler's buildings: The two oldest buildings remaining in the Loop once housed tanners, a steam heating company, manufacturers and various wholesalers. Provides a view of what life was like in the period immediately after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
500 through 800 blocks of S. Dearborn, S. Federal and S. Plymouth Streets, Printers' Row: Once home to Chicago-based printers and publishers. Now a landmark, the area has been redeveloped for residential and commercial uses.
1600-08 S. Dearborn, Tattersall's Hall: Major labor hall, where on November 22, 1903, 15,000 workers and sympathizers assembled to protest against the Chicago City Railway Company and demand municipal ownership. They marched on State Street, 6,000 coming from the north, 3,000 coming from the south. During the strike of the entire nine-mile streetcar network, local and national newspapers reported widespread community support. For example, stockyard workers released flocks of sheep to block streetcar traffic and, in another instance, eighth-grade students walked out of the Hendricks School at 43rd and Shields when their teacher arrived on a scab-operated streetcar.
Chicago's Pullman
The Pullman neighborhood exemplifies the "company town" style of industrial development, and was the site of one of the most famous labor clashes in U.S. history. George M. Pullman began construction in 1880, seeking to create a harmonious environment that would prevent class tensions. However, Pullman's social control experiment alienated workers, and conditions worsened when Pullman maintained the cost of rents but decreased wages during the 1893 financial panic.
The resulting 1894 battle between the American Railway Union (ARU), an early industry-wide union led by Eugene V. Debs, and the General Managers' Association (GMA), a powerful combination of railroad owners, ended when President Grover Cleveland called in federal troops over the objections of Mayor John P. Hopkins and Governor John Peter Altgeld. In 1960, the city of Chicago declared the area "blighted" and moved to replace it with a new industrial park. The residents saved Pullman's main housing and it continues to be a vibrant community. For more information on Pullman, visit the museum at 112th and Forrestville.
SE corner of 107th and Champlain, Ukrainian Educational Society: During the Depression, the building was the scene of organizing for union campaigns and unemployment marches. Note the A. Philip Randolph Museum across the street.
111th Street and Forrestville, Hotel Florence: Pullman officials' headquarters during the strike included the only bar in Pullman. The bar was not accessible to workers, who needed to visit taverns in adjacent communities (see Schlitz Row, Front Street between 113th and 115th).
South side of 111th Street between Champlain and Langley, Officers' Row: Company officials who earned approximately $5,000 per year lived here for an average rent of $50 per month.
11100 and 11200 blocks of Langley, Workers' Cottages: Least desirable housing in Pullman. On May 14 and 18, 1894, Debs visited here, and on August 14, Governor Altgeld visited after the strike was broken by federal troops.
113th and Langley Playground: On May 18, 1894, Debs and G. W. Howard of the ARU spoke to thousands of workers here.
112th and St. Lawrence, Green Stone Church (1882): Pullman demanded 6 percent of profits, even from the only religious building in Pullman and even during the depression of 1893. Rev. E. C. Oggel praised George Pullman from the pulpit during the 1894 strike. Much of the disgusted congregation left the church, while Oggel left Pullman, never to return. It has been home to the Pullman United Methodist Church since 1907, when the government forced the company to sell its town property, and the former congregation of pro-labor Rev. William H. Carwardine, author of a famous history of the Pullman strike, purchased the building.
Champlain between 111th and 113th, Workers' and Managers' Row Houses: In 1894, workers paid $15 to $17 per month when average full-time pay was $1.84/day. Thomas W. Heathcote, Chairman of the Central Strike Committee and President of Pullman Local No. 209, lived at 11363 Champlain. Jennie Curtis, President of the Girls' Union No. 269 and member of the strikers' grievance committee, who famously pleaded the workers' cause to Mayor Hopkins on May 27, 1894, lived at 11310 Champlain.
Chicago's Bronzeville
The Bronzeville (Grand Boulevard) neighborhood became Chicago's first majority African American neighborhood during the Great Migration between World War I and 1929. Black migrants formed successful civic associations, churches and labor organizations to cater to their newfound community.
3032 5. Wabash, Chicago Urban League offices (1918-1957): A first point of contact in Chicago for many black southerners and, beginning in the 1920s, a liaison to realtors and employers. As blacks began to join unions in larger numbers during the 1930s, the League shifted its emphasis to support organized labor and also began to address inadequate housing, restrictive covenants and job ceilings. League offices moved to 4510 S. Michigan Ave. in 1965.
3517-33 S. Giles, Giles Armory (1915): Home of "Fighting Eighth," the first armory in the United States built for a black military regiment. In February 1936, 8,000 visitors witnessed the National Negro Congress to help forge a new working-class leadership and black labor activism.
322 East 43rd Street, The Forum: The Forum was one of the most important places for radical labor and civil rights groups during the Depression years. On separate occasions, the International Labor Defense (ILD), NNC, Communist Party, and the South Side Labor Council met here.
4321 S. Michigan Avenue, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division Headquarters: The BSCP, led by A. Philip Randolph, became one of the first black unions in the nation to fight for bargaining rights and official recognition (achieved in 1937) as an American Federation of Labor union for its black sleeping car workers membership.
Chicago's Washington Park
Irish and German railroad and meatpacking workers settled here in the 1860s followed by German Jews in the 1890s. The neighborhood's direct transportation routes to downtown inspired wealthy white Chicagoans to build large mansions along the neighborhood's wide boulevards.
50th and Drexel, Operation PUSH (1923): Originally home to the Kehilath Anshe Ma'arive (K.A.M.), the oldest Jewish congregation in Chicago, in 1971, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founded Operation PUSH and purchased the building for its headquarters. It is also used for labor mediation and negotiation with corporations to provide greater minority ownership and employment opportunities.
5320 S. Drexel, Musicians Union Local 208: This is one of the most powerful black musicians' union locals in the country.
Chicago's South East
Southeast Chicago and northwest Indiana contain the remnants of what was once a vibrant center of the steel industry. The entire lakeshore south of 79th Street and the banks of the Calumet River were once covered with steel mills, but they have all disappeared since the 1970s. U.S. Steel's South Works, which once employed more than 17,000 workers and occupied more than 800 acres north of Calumet Park, closed in 1993. The neighborhood experienced many labor struggles, such as the infamous 1937 Memorial Day Massacre at Republic Steel.
91st and South Chicago Ave., Bessemer Park: Rally place for the monumental 1919 steel strike.
9801 South Avenue G, Calumet Park & Field House: The field house is home to a museum documenting the everyday life of people in the steel industry.
11731 S. Avenue 0, Former offices of United Steel Workers' Local 1031: There is a plaque on the flagpole memorializing the Republic Steel Massacre.
117th Street between Green Bay and Burley, Republic Steel: Site of the Memorial Day Massacre in 1937 when workers at Republic Steel joined 85,000 workers at other steel plants in a mass strike organized by the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). To stop the picketing, approximately 200 Chicago police officers set up a barrier across 117th Street. In a matter of minutes the police fired more than 200 shots. Four marchers were fatally shot, six others were mortally wounded, and 30 others suffered gunshot wounds. The gunshot wounds of the dead were all back or side wounds. Former steel workers have claimed the statue, originally erected by Republic to celebrate the company, as a monument to the victims of the Massacre. Its 10 spires are now said to represent the 10 marchers killed by the police.
Chicago
Gravesite of Earl Oliver, 22nd President/Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, is located in the Sermon on the Mount section in Chapel Hill Gardens Cemetery at 111th Street and Central Avenue.
2625 W. Fullerton, Belgian Hall: This was the meeting place of the Chicago Flat Janitors Union, forerunner to the Service Employees International Union.
Division St. and California in Humboldt Park: The "Miner's Homecoming" Monument (1911) is Sculptor Charles J. Mulligan's memorial to the 259 victims of the 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster in northern Illinois.
Bug House Square (Washington Square Park), Between Delaware and Walton on Dearborn St., across from the Newberry Library: Chicago's most famous free speech forum used by, among others, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Haymarket protesters and Clarence Darrow.
2431-33 W. Roosevelt Rd., Vorwaerts Turner Hall: Athletic club, community center and labor meeting place for working-class Germans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Chicagoland
1100 South Oakley Blvd., Farm Equipment Workers Organizing Committee Headquarters: Representing 25,000 workers in the Midwest, the FEWOC was at the center of the CIO's attempts to organize workers at plants such as International Harvester. It now houses the Cook County Hospital Annex.
24th and Lake Streets, Melrose Park, Illinois: On May 6, 1932, at a Communist organized mass meeting against abysmal Depression working conditions, police fired into a crowd of more than 1,000 people who gathered in an empty lot after the permit to hold an indoor meeting was denied. Eight demonstrators were shot in the legs, and 51 others (49 men and two women) were later indicted by the grand jury for this "riot."
863 S. Des Plaines Ave., Forest Park, Illinois, Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home): Originally founded by German Masonic Lodges in 1873, Waldheim contains "Dissenters' Row," 24 graves of labor heroes including Lucy Parsons, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Emma Goldman and William Z. Foster. The centerpiece is the monument at the graves of the Haymarket Eight, who were convicted for their part in the 1886 Haymarket Riot, four of whom were hanged on "Black Friday," November 11, 1887.
22nd St. & Cicero Ave., Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works (1903): Along with International Harvester, Western Electric was a key employer for residents. It closed in 1983. George Elton Mayo's 1927-1932 experiments here produced the "Hawthorne Effect"—that improvements in production occurred not in response to actual improvements in working conditions, but because employees perceived that management was interested in those improvements.
31st and Kedzie, Washburne Trade School: Established by a state mandate after World War I, Washburne soon established apprentice programs with the cooperation of the building trades unions and moved to this former liquid carbonite factory in 1937.
