1913 Massacre

DESCRIPTION: In Calumet, Michigan, striking copper miners and their children are having a Christmas celebration; strike-breakers outside bar the doors then raise a false fire alarm. In the ensuing stampede, seventy-three children are crushed or suffocated
AUTHOR: Woody Guthrie
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (recording by author)
KEYWORDS: lie strike death labor-movement mining disaster children
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, pp. 157-158, "1913 Massacre"
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 306, "The 1913 Massacre" (1 text)
DT, MASS1913*
Roud #17663
RECORDINGS:
Woody Guthrie, "1913 Massacre" (Asch 360, 1945; on Struggle1, Struggle2)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "One Morning in May (To Hear the Nightingale Sing)" (tune)
NOTES [147 words]: In the late 19th/early 20th century, the rapid expansion of the electrical industry created great demand for copper, for which the chief source was the mines in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Bitter strikes resulted as the miners, under the leadership of the Western Federation of Miners, demanded decent pay and safer working conditions.
Guthrie's description of the events of 1913 is dead-on accurate, according to the residents of Calumet; Italian Hall, where the disaster occurred, was still standing in the early 1980s, but has since been torn down. - PJS
There is an historical marker on the site (Italian Hall, 7th Street, Calumet, MI, at its junction with Elm Street, one block south of Highway 203), and the site has not been built over. One of the plaques has a picture of Woody and mentions this song. There are quite a few recent photos of the site on Google Maps. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: FSWB306A

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