Italian Hall disaster
The Italian Hall Disaster (sometimes referred to as the 1913 Massacre) is a tragedy that occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. Seventy-three men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death when someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party.[1]
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[edit] Background
The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company ("C&H") was formed from the consolidation of the Calumet and Hecla mining companies in 1871. C&H was the single largest copper mining company in Michigan's copper country. One of the longest and most disastrous strikes in the copper country took place in 1913, and included all the C&H mines. The strike went on for about five months before Christmas.[2]
[edit] The Disaster
On Christmas Eve many of the striking miners and their families had gathered for a Christmas party sponsored by the Western Federation of Miners. It is estimated that there were over five hundred people at the party, which was held on the second floor of Calumet's Italian Hall. A steep stairway was the only way to the second floor, although there was a poorly-marked fire escape on one side of the building and ladders down the back of the building which could only be reached by climbing through the windows.
The tragedy began when someone yelled "Fire!"; there was none. However, people panicked and rushed for the stairs. In the ensuing melee, seventy-three people (including fifty-nine children) were killed. To date there has been much debate about who cried "fire" and why. The most common theory is that "fire" was called out by anti-union company management in order to disrupt the party. At least one researcher in the area claims to know the name of the man who cried "Fire!" A documentary on the subject which is in production now contains interview footage of the researcher giving the name and occupation of the man who cried "Fire!" along with the evidence supporting the identification of the culprit.[citation needed]
There were several investigations into the disaster. The first, by the coroner, contained serious errors. Witnesses who did not speak English were forced to answer questions in English, and most witnesses were not asked follow-up questions. It appears that many persons called to testify had not seen what happened. After three days, the coroner issued a ruling that did not give a cause of death, apparently clearing those viewed as the obvious culprits: out-of-town strike breakers. Until recently, the transcript of the inquest was not widely available, so people could not evaluate the ruling of the coroner. There are now copies of the inquest available for researchers to examine.[citation needed]
A common story regarding the fire states that the doors at the bottom of the Italian Hall's stairs opened inward. According to the story, when the fleeing party goers reached the bottom of the stairs, they pressed up against the doors which only opened inward, causing many people to be crushed. The theory appears to have first emerged in the 1940s, in a book called "We Are Many," by Ella Reeve Bloor. All photos of the doors suggest a double set of doors with both sets opening outward. The doors were not mentioned as a contributing factor at the December 1913 coroner's inquest, the 1914 subcommittee hearing, or in any of the newspaper stories of the time. A recent book by Alison K. Hoagland, Mine Towns, alleges that the doors were folding doors, hinged in the middle. While this design could explain some of the confusion on this topic, the book does not explain the photographs taken the morning after the disaster which clearly show that the doors were not folding doors, nor hinged in the middle.[citation needed]
[edit] Aftermath
After the first wave of grief had passed following the tragedy, while there was bitterness against the company, it was considerably greater against an organization known as the Citizens Alliance (the "Alliance"). The Alliance was funded by mine management and actively opposed the union and the strike. Knowing what poor condition the strikers were in, the Alliance took steps that purported to help the families. It offered money to the union, telling union leaders to spend it as they wished.
The Alliance's offer was not unconditional. Rather, it insisted that Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, publicly exonerate the Alliance of all fault in the tragedy. Moyer refused. Rather than provide such an exoneration, Moyer announced that the Alliance was responsible for the catastrophe, claiming that an Alliance agent yelled the word “fire”.[3] Members of The Alliance subsequently assaulted Moyer in nearby Hancock, then shot and kidnapped him. They placed him on a train with instructions to leave the state and never return. After getting medical attention in Chicago (and holding a press conference where he displayed his gunshot wound) he returned to Michigan to continue the work of the WFM.
The Italian Hall has since been demolished, and only the archway remains from that day, although a state historical marker was erected in 1987.[4] The marker incorrectly states that the tragedy was partially caused by inward opening doors.[5] The Michigan Department of History Arts and Libraries has indicated that it will replace the marker to correct that error.
The event was memorialized by Woody Guthrie in the song "1913 Massacre", which claims that the doors were held shut on the outside by scabs.
The disaster has generated a fair amount of scholarly debate. Historian Arthur Thurner's Rebels on the Range: The Michigan Copper Miners' Strike of 1913-1914 (1984) raises the possibility that there actually might have been a fire in another part of the hall. This suggestion has been vigorously disputed by, among others, Steve Lehto, an attorney and author of Death's Door: The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder (2006). Lehto's book concludes that the most probable culprit was mine management. Lehto does not identify the specific person who yelled "fire" but does exhaustively examine news reports, transcripts of interviews with the survivors, the coroner's reports, and other documentation in an attempt to answer the question of whether this was a calculated act by the mine management or a tragic error.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ A complete list of the dead can be found at Genealogia.fi
- ^ "Excerpt from Zajednicar."
- ^ New York Times, 12/27/1913
- ^ Michigan Historical Markers, Registered Site L1337, last accessed August 24, 2007
- ^ Italian Hall Memorial
[edit] Further reading
- Lehto, Steve Death's Door: The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder (Momentum Books, 2006) ISBN 978-1-879094-77-2
- US Library of Congress Italian Hall Documents, Library of Congress Holdings. Retrieved April 15, 2008
