The Haymarket Affair (1886-1893)
The Haymarket Affair began as a peaceful Chicago rally protesting police violence against strikers and ended with a bombing, a contested conspiracy trial, and the execution of four labor organizers. The identity of the bomber was never established, and the trial was criticized at the time and later as a miscarriage of justice by labor advocates, legal commentators, and the Illinois governor who pardoned the surviving defendants. The May 1 date of the eight-hour-day campaign became International Workers' Day, commemorated worldwide.
Events
The Eight-Hour Day Strikes Begin
Strikes and rallies marked May 1, 1886, the deadline the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions had set two years earlier for the eight-hour workday; an estimated 350,000 workers participated nationwide. Chicago was the campaign's center, where organizers including August Spies and Albert Parsons linked the eight-hour demand to the city's militant labor movement. Employers and city authorities treated the mobilization as a threat to public order and industrial discipline.
Location: Chicago and cities across the United States
Police Fire on the McCormick Rally
At a rally outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant, where workers were locked out and striking, police officers fired on the crowd, killing at least two workers (estimates vary) and wounding others. August Spies, who was speaking at a nearby meeting, was told of the shooting and issued a circular calling a protest meeting at Haymarket Square the following evening. The police action at McCormick was the immediate stated cause of the Haymarket rally.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
The Haymarket Rally and Bombing
Several thousand people attended the protest meeting on Desplaines Street near Haymarket Square, which proceeded peacefully until police advanced to disperse the crowd late in the evening. A bomb was thrown at the police line, killing Officer Mathias Degan at the scene; police opened fire, and in the exchange seven officers died in total (some of friendly fire, according to later analyses) along with an unknown number of workers, with dozens wounded on both sides. The bomber was never identified, and both the police and the press demanded retribution against the labor movement's anarchist leaders.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Mass Arrests and the Press Campaign
Police arrested hundreds of people in the days after the bombing, raided labor and anarchist offices, and seized publications; eight anarchist organizers were indicted. Chicago newspapers demanded hangings and treated the bombing as an anarchist conspiracy against the state, while some papers and civic leaders warned against convicting men on the basis of their political views. The atmosphere of the arrests and press coverage was later cited by the defense and by Governor Altgeld as compromising the defendants' right to a fair trial.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
The Conspiracy Trial
The trial of August Spies, Albert Parsons, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, and Oscar Neebe opened before Judge Joseph Gary; the state's theory was that the defendants had incited the bombing through their speeches and writings. On August 20, 1886, seven defendants were sentenced to death and Neebe to fifteen years' imprisonment, although no direct evidence linked any of them to the bomb. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the convictions in 1887, and appeals to the United States Supreme Court were denied.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
The Executions of the Haymarket Martyrs
Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged after their final statements were read; Louis Lingg died by suicide in his cell the night before, and Fielden and Schwab had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The four executed men became known to the labor movement as the Haymarket Martyrs, and their funeral drew tens of thousands. The executions did not resolve the affair: the bomber's identity remained unknown, and support for the defendants grew in the United States and Europe.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
May Day Becomes International Workers' Day
The founding congress of the Second International, meeting in Paris in July 1889, designated May 1 as International Workers' Day in commemoration of the Chicago strikes and the Haymarket affair, and called for annual demonstrations for the eight-hour day. May Day became the principal annual observance of the international labor movement and remains a public holiday in much of the world. The commemoration linked the Chicago events to labor politics far beyond the United States.
Location: Paris, France
Altgeld Pardons the Survivors
Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and Michael Schwab, stating in his pardon message that the trial had been conducted unfairly, including the packing of the jury and the admission of improper evidence, and that the state had not proved the defendants' guilt. Altgeld's decision was criticized by many business and press voices and effectively ended his political career; the pardon did not clear the executed men by name but established the official critique of the trial. The Haymarket case continued to shape American debates over free speech, labor rights, and the conduct of political trials.
Location: Springfield, Illinois, United States