The Memorial Day Massacre and the Movement for Industrial Democracy : Chicago, Labor, and the Movement for Industrial Democracy

This book explores one of the most dramatic and scandalous events in the movement for American democratic reform. Dubbed the Memorial Day Massacre, it saw Chicago police shoot and kill ten demonstrators and beat more than one hundred others as they tried to form a mass picket line at the Republic Steel Plant in South Chicago. "Michael Dennis's exploration of the events and meaning of the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre in the Chicago Little Steel strike combines a stirring narrative account of a terrible day in the history of industrial conflict with a compelling argument for the radical potential of the quest for a democratic workplace in New Deal America."--Maurice Isserman, James L. Ferguson Professor of History, Hamilton College, and author of Which Side Were You On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War "Michael Dennis has placed a landmark event in US history into its broader social and political context as a turning point in the long struggle to inject an element of democracy into American industry. In the process, he places in a new light the Memorial Day Massacre, an experience often invoked but just as often misunderstood."--James R. Barrett, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "In this rich and highly readable account, Michael Dennis casts new light on one of the epic moments in U.S. labor history. Dennis brilliantly retrieves the struggle for human rights and industrial democracy that guided the hearts and hands of the working class actors in the story. The movement was put down by violence, and the steel mills are long gone, but Dennis shows why these workers left a legacy that is still very relevant today." - Rosemary Feurer, author of Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950 Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Forgotten Memorials....Pages 1-11 Fire, Steel, and the Coming Crisis: The 1920s in Chicago and America....Pages 13-34 Out of Despair....Pages 35-50 Hammer and Tong: The Struggle for Steel....Pages 51-66 Loading the Charge: The Steelworkers Organize....Pages 67-84 Irresistible Forces: Conflict at Republic Steel....Pages 85-120 “Trouble Is Certain to Follow”....Pages 121-136 A Sunday to Remember....Pages 137-162 Counterrevolution: The Campaign against Industrial Democracy....Pages 163-176 “A Major Breakdown of Democratic Government”....Pages 177-201 “Ruthlessness and Disregard for the Law”: After the Massacre....Pages 203-217 “The Day Is Coming...”....Pages 219-236 Back Matter....Pages 237-278 It was one of the most remarkable events in the modern movement for American democracy, yet few know anything about it. Dubbed the Memorial Day ""Massacre, "" it saw the Chicago police shoot and kill 10 demonstrators and beat dozens as they tried to picket in front of the Republic Steel Plant in South Chicago. The protest grew out of the 1937 ""Little Steel"" strike, one of the most fractious labor disputes in the nation's history. It was the culmination of a movement for industrial democracy that had its origins in the mills and the mines of Gilded Age America