UnStorming Sheridan >> Story One >> Haymarket

In May of 1886, the nationwide struggle for the eight-hour day brought out 80,000 Chicago workers, who joined forces with locked-out strikers at McCormick Harvest Works, which was heavily guarded by police and Pinkertons. In response to police killings of two strikers, a rally was called in Haymarket Square on May 4. Prominent anarchist leaders spoke from a wagon, and as the crowd was beginning to disperse, someone threw a bomb, killing eight policemen. The police began firing on the crowd, and an undetermined number of demonstrators lost their lives. The event triggered a massive wave of anti-union repression, and hundreds of radicals and anarchists across the country were harassed, detained, and arrested. Eight Chicago organizers were put on trial for conspiracy for the bombing. All the defendants were convicted despite the absence of any type of evidence against them. On November 11, 1887, four were executed, while another committed suicide in his cell. In 1892, Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining Haymarket defendants, calling the trial a sham. The eight hour day and 40 hour workweek were finally enacted in federal law in 1938.

Haymarket is now officially recognized by a public sculpture dedicated by the City of Chicago in 2004.