Hall of Honor

Irving S. Abrams (1891-1980) 

Skilled cloth cutter; anarchist; IWW member; attorney-at-law; early member of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers at Hart, Schaffner, & Marx in Chicago; and founding member of the Illinois Labor History Society.

 Irving S. Abrams became a member of the Pioneer Aid and Support Association, which was founded in 1889 to undertake the support of the widows and orphans of the Haymarket Martyrs. It was that association which also undertook to erect the magnificent monument to the Haymarket Martyrs in what was then German Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery) in Forest Park, Illinois.  In 1942, Abrams was elected President of the Pioneer Aid and Support Association. By 1960, the membership had aged and dwindled to the point where Abrams was both the President and the sole surviving member of the organization. In 1971, concluding that the ILHS might have a future, Abrams presented the deed to the monument and cemetery plot to the ILHS in a solemn ceremony in the presence of the statue. Indeed, Abrams turned out to be the sole survivor of and “clean-up man” for several expiring organizations, including the Emma Goldman Memorial Committee, which had assumed responsibility for the upkeep of the Goldman Memorial, which stands about 50 feet from the Martyrs Monument. Moreover, Abrams found himself bankrolling much of the cost of Goldman’s burial and memorial expenses.

 Born in England of a Polish mother and a German father, young Irving was taken to Germany at the age of 3 by his parents, and moved again to Rochester, New York at age 10. After getting work in a tailor shop as a young man, he became a skilled garment worker and got involved with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as an organizer in several upstate New York cities. When Big Bill Haywood took over the leadership of a strike in Little Falls, New York, Abrams moved on to Chicago and a job as a cutter at Hart, Schaffner, & Marx. During the long 1915 strike by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union to establish its dominance in the industry, Abrams functioned as a strike leader. He later declared with apparent pride that during the 15 weeks of that strike, he was arrested 39 times!

While still working at the Hart, Schaffner, & Marx factory, Abrams decided to become a lawyer. Lacking in the required formal education and credentials for law school, he nevertheless prepared himself for the examinations through self-studying in English and American Literature, Ancient Medieval and Modern History, Civil Government, Political Economy, Anthropology, Sociology, Industrial History of the United States, English Composition and Rhetoric. He was accepted into John Marshall Law School in 1917, receiving his law degree in 1920. As an attorney, he specialized in civil rights and civil liberties issues.

In his personal life, Abrams was devoted to the magic of poetry. He says as much in his memoir Haymarket Heritage, published by the Charles Kerr Company in 1989: “Poems and songs have played an important part in developing our concepts and aspirations. They shake us out of our complacency and waft us into a world of dreams that enriches our lives.”  The ashes of Irving Abrams are interred, along with those of his wife Esther, a few feet from the Martyrs Monument and adjacent to the marker for Lucy Parsons. He was honored in 1980 through a memorial service held at the monument.

The Haymarket Martyrs' Monument

The magnificent sculpture known all over the world as the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument has been a beloved inspiration to the hosts of visitors who have made the pilgrimage to Forest Home Cemetery (once known as German Waldheim Cemetery). Dedicated on June 25, 1893 it was certainly a focus of attention by the Labor Movements of the world.

Look at this simple, yet majestic woman cast of bronze; how she presses with one hand the laurel wreath on the brow of the fallen hero, while, without halting, she steps forward into the great storm laden figure whose lightening now causes the world to tremble. Look at this image and your hopes will be nourished, your sense will become keener, your hearts will be steeled! From the address by Dr. Ernest Schmidt at the dedication ceremony

Eight thousand people attended the dedication. Many of them had come to Chicago to attend the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Others were drawn to the event in order to hear a much heralded speech by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld. Surely, no one was disappointed because Altgeld denounced the conduct of the trial and the absurd verdict which resulted in the execution of martyrs Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, and Adolph Fischer and the imprisonment of Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden. Louis Lingg escaped execution by apparently committing suicide in his cell. Altgeld signed his famous pardon message on the following day, June 26, 1893.

The creation of this monument might never have occurred had it not been for the decision in 1888 by leaders of Chicago’s business community to commission and erect a statue depicting a Chicago policeman with his hand held high in a gesture commanding the famous Haymarket meeting of May 4, 1886 to disband, thus perpetuating the false impression that the meeting was a “riot” of some kind. Indeed, the Pioneer Aid and Support Society which had been created to raise money for the support of the widows and orphans of the Martyrs had explicitly rejected the idea of a monument on the grounds that the money would be better used in support of the families. Reminiscing about the issue many years later, famous anarchist Emma Goldman wrote:

My thoughts wandered back to the time when I had opposed the erection of the monument. I had argued that our dead comrades needed no stone to immortalize them. I realized now how narrow and bigoted I had been, and how little I understood the power of art. The monument served as an embodiment of the ideals for which the men had died, a visible symbol of their words and their deeds.

As we gather tonight at the Union Hall of Honor of the Illinois Labor History Society we can attest to the correctness of Emma Goldman’s second thoughts about the value of historic memory and the power of a visual image to project an inspirational and historically correct message throughout the generations.

According to Art Historian Melissa Dabakis in her article Martyrs and Monuments of Chicago: The Haymarket Affair, which appeared in the Journal of American Cultural Studies, October 1994:

In January of 1888, a committee of twenty-five businessmen and civic leaders, headed by Robert I. Crane, met to oversee the erection of a monument to the 180 Chicago police officers involved in the Haymarket incident. The Chicago Tribune sponsored the competition, offering a prize of one hundred dollars for the best design. The committee raised ten thousand dollars by public subscription, receiving much support from the Commercial Club and the Union League Club as well as businessmen from Aurora, Elgin, and Rockford who opposed unions and the eight-hour day campaign.

Continuing with Melissa Dabakis’ previously quoted remarks:

Responding to the dedication of the Police Monument in 1889, anarchist sympathizers began planning a monument comparable in scale and value, but which would offer an alternative commemoration of these historical events......On July 18,1889, the Pioneer Aid and Support Association inaugurated a monument fund to which all progressive workers in the country were asked to contribute.

On February 14,1892, the committee awarded the commission and $5,130 to Albert Weinert, a German educated sculptor and recent immigrant. In her article, Dr. Dabakis refers to a conversation with former ILHS Vice President William Adelman, June 2, 1992 as follows: “Facing east, the monument evokes the dawning of a new and more hopeful day.” The principal figure is a woman dressed in a peasant costume apparently referencing the French Revolution. In fact the French National Anthem, La Marseillaise was a favorite song of the German immigrant workers who dominated much of the Chicago labor scene. The figure striding forward with great resolve to create a better future almost casually lays a laurel wreath on the brow of a fallen hero, thus paying tribute to his sacrifice without stopping to weep and worship. This is a thought echoed not long afterward by the famous singer, songwriter, Joe Hill, who upon his execution by the state of Utah, declared to the public, “Don’t waste any time mourning - organize”.

But who would have supposed that on May 3, 1998, 1,000 would come to Forest Home Cemetery at the call of the Chicago Federation of Labor under then president Don Turner to celebrate the designation by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, of the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument as a National Historic Landmark. At the same time, the Illinois Labor History Society was declared to be its official steward. That was a natural consequence of the fact that ILHS had been presented with the actual deed to the property on May 2, 1971 by Irving S. Abrams, then the sole surviving member of the Pioneer Aid and Support Society and its only officer.

We have done much over the past few months to bring the Martyrs’ Monument back to the magnificence of its initial appearance when it was introduced to the world by Dr. Schmidt in 1893.  Nevertheless the ravages of unknown metal thieves who stripped the monument of its’ metal plaques and the intricate palm frond basketry used by visitors as a repository for floral gifts which they had brought from around the world have yet to be restored. This is because of the great expense involved. This important work has been deferred until a major fundraising effort to reach the organized labor movements of the world could be launched on the occasion of this very Union Hall of Honor Event. The Labor Movements of the world are still to be reached, although we are confident that the response will be positive.

James C. Petrillo

Into the conplex and turbulent organizational stew of early musicians’ organizations and their relationship to the burgeoning labor movement stepped James C. Petrillo, a young son of the rough and tough Chicago West Side. Petrillo had taken trumpet lessons at Hull House and headed a dance band which had joined a musicians group closely associated with the Chicago Federation of Labor. In 1914 at age 22 he was elected Vice President. Defeated in 1917, he switched over to Local 10 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) where he was assigned the job of organizing musicians in the Chinese restaurants. With that mission accomplished, in 1919 he was elected Vice President of Local 10. Following a lengthy period of internal conflicts within Local 10, Petrillo was elected President in 1922. Foresaking his trumpet, Petrillo turned all his energies to solving the issues confronting Local 10. The first issue was a demand on radio stations to pay wages to musicians who were performing on the air. The stations claimed that the musicians were receiving free publicity, and hence did not deserve cash pay as well. Ultimately, the radio stations bowed to the union’s pressure. Soon after, in 1924, the front porch of Petrillo’s home was wrecked and the windows blown out by a bomb.

 In 1927, the Chicago local went on strike against the moving picture palaces. An injunction was sought against Petrillo in Federal Court but it was blocked by union lawyers, among them Clarence Darrow. After four days the union’s demands were accepted. In 1931, the threat of a strike brought an agreement between Local 10 and Chicago’s major hotels. The union then went on to win wage increases at restaurants, theaters, the Opera and the Symphony. With Local 10’s success at the bargaining table, rival groups began affiliating, including the union group which Petrillo had joined as a youngster.

With the coming of the Great Depression, overall employment of musicians fell drastically. In order to deal with unemployment, Petrillo conceived the idea of free concerts in public parks, but the City was not interested in such “extravagances.” Petrillo continued to press the political front by securing an appointment to the West Park Board and then through Mayor Kelly an appointment to the Chicago Park District Board. In 1935, this Board did respond favorably to Petrillo’s idea of concerts in the park, but declined to finance the project. So Local 10 appropriated many thousands of dollars from its own treasury to launch the free Grant Park summer concerts. The phenomenal public attendance convinced the Park Board to underwrite future concerts. Even so, the union had to pay for any soloists.

Still concerned about unemployment among musicians as a result of “canned” music on the radio, Local 10 announced that union members would not be permitted to make recordings as of February 1, 1937. Although this action might result in a shift of recording work to other cities, Petrillo argued that someone had to start the ball rolling. At the national convention that year under President Weber, it was agreed to call on industry to negotiate the issue of canned music. After fourteen weeks of intense negotiations a two-year agreement was reached under which radio stations would increase employment of staff musicians in exchange for continued use of recorded music. Also, the recording industry agreed to use only union musicians. Weber retired at the 1940 convention after 40 years as president. Petrillo was elected unanimously to suceed him. His hand thus strengthened, Petrillo repened his campaign against canned music. In June 1942 the union announced that after August 1, AFM members would no longer make recordings. This action was supported by the AFL convention in October.

The ban on recordings ran into intense political opposition in the name of supporting the war effort. In February 1943 the union proposed that companies pay small fees for each record produced. These fees would be put into a fund to reduce unemployment among musicians. The companies refused. Finally in November 1944, Columbia and RCA yielded and agreed to a three-year contract that accepted the recording fee concept. This settlement laid the basis for the Music Performance Fund of today, an independent non-profit organization which administers funds to support free public concerts. Unfortunately, due to changes in the recording industry, this fund is no longer receiving adequate contributions from the industry.

 

Bucky Halker

Bucky Halker was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in 1954 and raised in Ashland, Wisconsin, a declining blue-collar, iron ore, and lumbering town on the shores of Lake Superior where fishing, hunting, taverns, polka bands, and fish fries held sway. The region was home to second-generation Swedes, Finns, Norwegians, Serbs, Poles, Croatians, Anglos and a large Indian population. Like fellow “jackpine savage” Bob Dylan, Bucky learned the meaning of class, race, and ethnicity in this environment. However, he credits his grandfather, a Chicagoan and long-time stockyard worker, and his aunt, a Chicago teacher and life-long union activist, for his strong sense of labor history, democratic reform, and history “from the bottom up.”

At the same time, he blames his mother and girls for leading him down the wayward path of a musician and his father for his deep distrust of centralized authority. Bucky did pursue an interest in labor and history as far as a PhD (University of Minnesota). He also has a long record of scholarship, including reviews, essays, fellowships, awards, and guest lectures in the US, Canada, and Europe. He is the author For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895 (University of Illinois Press, 1991) and “Local 208 and the Struggle for Racial Equality” (BMR Journal, 1988).  Nevertheless, Bucky left his tenure-track job more than twenty years ago in an effort to take both labor songs and his own music into a larger public arena.

At 13, Bucky began writing songs, playing the guitar, learning folksongs, and performing with his own rock band. He tours extensively in the US and Europe and has released seven original-song recordings, most recently Wisconsin 2-13-63, Vols. 1 & 2. He has also recorded renditions of labor protest songs, including Welcome to Labor Land, a collection of Illinois labor songs recorded for the Illinois AFL-CIO. To date, he has presented more than 300 concerts of labor protest and Woody Guthrie songs. He also produced the critically acclaimed three-CD series, Folksongs of Illinois (University of Illinois Press). He is a member of American Federation of Musicians Local 1000 and serves on the board of directors for the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives in New York City (www.woodyguthrie.org).

Local 208 Chicago Federation of Musicians

When the American Federation of Musicians was founded in 1896 and Chicago’s Local 10 in 1901, thousands of African-American musicians sought membership in the union.  Excluded by the national and local union because of their race, however, Chicago’s African-American musicians formed Local 208 in 1902. Under those segregated condition, Local 208 nevertheless grew and established itself as a powerful and influential voice in the music community. By the end of WWI the local owned a three-story office and practice building on south State Street. Years later it was also own an apartment building in Hyde Park, which offered reduced rent for professional musicians. The local was also able to enforce a wage scale among theaters, social clubs, organizations, and larger clubs where musicians performed.  The leadership also enjoyed cordial relations with the white Local 10, even as it continued to press for equal membership throughout the 1930s and 40s, particularly after the rise of the C.I.O. and its integrated unions.

The list of Local 208’s membership over the years is a testimony to the talented musicians in its ranks. The list reads like a Who’s Who of Chicago music and included Louis Armstrong, Bo Diddley, Nat King Cole, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Ahmad Jamal, Lil Armstrong, Howlin’ Wolf, Reverend Thomas Dorsey, Cab Calloway, Milt Buckner, Buddy Guy, King Oliver, Erskine Tate, Eddie South, Red Saunders, and many more.As the Civil Right Movement gained momentum and African-American music began their own national movement to integrate the AFM, pressure increased end segregation in the Chicago ranks as well. Finally, in January of 1966 Local 10 and 208 were merged and equality finally came to the Chicago AFM.

Betty Balanoff

History Professor at Roosevelt University (Retired)

Betty Balanoff, wife and mother of a labor family with deep roots in the steel workers union, retired in 1991 from her career of 28 years as a professor of History at Roosevelt University. She had a particular interest in labor and immigration history. In fact during the early part of her career, she introduced the first labor history course open to undergraduates at a Chicago college. For some time both Roosevelt and the University of Illinois had provided labor education under the sponsorship of labor unions, but labor history, as such, was not available to the general student population. Oral history in labor was another of her pioneering programs. The library at Roosevelt University holds her collection of over 60 interviews with both rank and file union members and labor leaders. This work was supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in celebration of the American Bicentennial. The transcripts have been digitized and are available on-line to all. Among those interviewed are:

• Irving Abrams and Fred Thompson of the IWW who were among the founders of the ILHS.
• Mollie Levitas, long-time secretary to famed John Fitzpatrick and Edward Nockles, president and secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL).
• Lillian Herstein, beloved delegate from the Chicago Teachers Union to the CFL.
• George Patterson, spokesperson for the demonstrators at the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937.
• Addie Wyatt, International Vice President of the United Food and Commercial Workers and previously a staff member of the Packinghouse Workers, CIO .

 

Leon Despres

Attorney and from Alderman of Chicago's 5th Ward

In 1929 as the Great Depression took shape, a freshly minted lawyer, Leon Despres, began his first job in a large Chicago law firm. Unhappily for this young socialist, Leon (Len as his friends called him) found that his principal assignments involved the foreclosure of delinquent home-mortgages. Accordingly, he soon set up his own law firm and began hanging out with a like-minded young attorney Joe Jacobs, who was developing strong labor union connections, and, in 1969, became the founding chairman of the ILHS.

Len turned mostly toward civil rights and other social justice issues. One of his clients was the newly forming Chicago-based International Brotherhood of Red Caps (IBRC), which was under the leadership of Willard S. Townsend with whom he developed a close relationship.

Len was among the lawyers who took depositions from the many witnesses to the carnage inflicted by the Chicago police at the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre at Republic Steel. Later, Len helped the La Follett Congressional Investigating Committee to gather information used in its scathing criticism of the police conduct on the field that day. At the subsequent public protest meeting, which filled the huge Civic Opera House, Leon Despres was a principal speaker. Studs Terkel recalled having wept in response to Despers’s oratory as he called upon City Hall to give full support to labor’s struggle to organize.

Elected Alderman of the 5th Ward, Leon Despres provided the City with a visible demonstration that a single person can “speak truth to power” as he defied the Mayor’s frequent demands that he shut up and sit down, a television City Council drama, which occurred again and again. In much the same spirit, Len joined hands with author and historian Timuel Black to organize a group of Chicagoans who flew to Alabama, where they joined the historic march with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery.

John H. Walker

Miner, state federation president, gubernatorial candidate

 John H. Walker tromped through coal camps with Mother Jones, led the Illinois Federation of Labor, ran for Illinois Governor and gave the United Mine Workers’ John L. Lewis his first full-time union position, only to become a bitter enemy of Lewis. Walker was born April 27, 1872 in Binnie Hill, Stirlinghsire, Scotland.  On his ninth birthday his family arrived in Braidwood, Illinois and within the year the boy was working in Coal City mines.  At age eleven he joined the Knights of Labor and also participated in the short-lived Miners’ Federation and the Mine Laborers.  His father was blacklisted for union activity and the family migrated to Oklahoma.

 In 1896 he organized United Mine Workers of America Local 505 in Central City, Illinois. That same year he married Phoebe Fox of Mason, Illinois, a Welsh miner’s daughter.   In 1897 he worked closely with UMWA President John Mitchell during a nine-month Illinois strike.  In 1900 Mitchell appointed Walker as an organizer to assist Mary “Mother” Jones in organizing the West Virginia mines.  He then worked his way up in the union ranks, becoming Illinois Mine Workers President in 1905.  He lobbied for mine safety laws, workers’ compensation and successfully negotiated four statewide contracts. He served on the Illinois Mining Investigation Committee after the 1909 Cherry mine disaster, which resulted in new safety laws.  Walker gave John L. Lewis his first full-time union position, as a lobbyist after the Cherry disaster.

 Elected President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor in 1913, Walker led Illinois labor’s legislative agenda, most importantly a law limiting court injunctions against strikes.  Under his leadership the Illinois Federation became one of the nation’s largest.  The Federation supported inclusion of occupational diseases under workers’ compensation, child labor laws, public ownership of utilities, teachers’ rights, cooperative stores, a state old-age pension program, credit unions and guarantees on bank deposits.  In the early 1920s, when business promoted its anti-union, open shop “American plan,” the Federation’s lead defensive efforts against the business agenda.

 During World War I Walker served on the State Council of Defense and served on President Woodrow Wilson’s Labor Mediation Commission, where he helped settle strikes and lock-outs in the western states and mediated the 1917 Chicago stockyards agreement.  When the war ended the State Federation supported the 1919 steel strike.

 Walker was a Socialist Party member and activist until 1916, when he supported President Woodrow Wilson.  In 1919 the State Federation and the Chicago Federation of Labor organized an Illinois Farmer-Labor Party.  In 1920 Walker was its candidate for Governor, with Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) President John Fitzpatrick running for the U.S. Senate.  Both candidates fared badly in the general election.  After the dismal 1920 showing and fearing that a competing party would stymie labor’s Springfield agenda, most Illinois unions abandoned the Party, which was taken over by a Communist faction headed by William Z. Foster in 1923.

 In 1922, unions and sympathetic groups re-organized the Joint Labor Legislative Board, which forged a united front on Springfield legislation.   AFL affiliates, the railroad brotherhoods, the CFL, the State Teachers Association and the Farmers’ Educational and Co-operative Union were amongst the members.  This united front helped pass labor’s key legislative agenda in 1925, an anti-injunction bill, limiting court injunction in labor disputes.  As a union democracy advocate, under Walker’s leadership the State Federation officers were elected through a popular vote by union members statewide.  He ran on the Socialist ticket for State Representative in 1904 and for Congress in 1906.   He strongly advocated workers’ cooperatives and in 1915 was elected the first President of the Illinois State Co-operative Society.  Walker unsuccessfully ran for the UMWA presidency in 1908, 1916, and 1918.  These were close races and Walker’s advocates charged fraud in his 1916 loss.  He resigned as President of the State Federation in 1918 to run for UMWA President and came back in 1919 to re-win his Illinois AFL position.  While out of office in 1919 he toured the nation, promoting U.S. membership in the League of Nations.  In 1928 Walker made his last UMWA effort, but Lewis successfully denied Walker’s candidacy, claiming he was not “actively working at the trade.”

 1930 turmoil in the UMWA ended Walker’s Federation leadership.  There were two UMWA conventions that year, one in Springfield held by anti-Lewis factions, and another in Indianapolis, led by Lewis.  Walker was elected secretary-treasurer by the Springfield convention; the AFL then forced Walker to resign as Federation President.  The dispute went to the courts, where Lewis’ leadership was upheld, but so was Walker’s election as UMWA Illinois District 12 President.  In 1932 dissidents launched the Progressive Mine Workers; Walker was still a UMWA officer, but the Illinois UMWA was so impoverished from these battles and the Depression that they asked the national organization to take over the Illinois District in 1933 and Lewis supporters gained control. Reuben Soderstrom had successfully filled Walker’s position at the State Federation in 1930.  Without his UMWA base, Walker then began his final career position, business agent for the Men’s Teachers’ Union in Chicago.  In 1930, Eugene Staley wrote of Walker, “Walker is a man of strong emotions; feeling, not logic, is the key to his spirit.  …John H. Walker feels and talks of ‘decency and humanity,’ leaving the subtleties of constitutional law to others.  …A likeable personality and an emotional nature make him an effective lobbyist; he can mix with politicians of all complexions in a free and easy way; he can win over wavering support to his cause; or he can flay his adversaries verbally in a committee hearing.”

Charles White

Charles W. White began painting as a child growing up poor on the south side of Chicago. Although denied entrance to different art schools due to discrimination in the 1920s and 30’s, White finally received a scholarship from the School of the Art Institute, one of the few schools that accepted African Americans.  As a painter in the WPA Federal Art Project in 1939, White was the only African-American on the murals staff (only 5% of Illinoisans hired in the FAP were African-American).  His murals for the George Cleveland Hall Branch Library—now lost, History of the Negro Press for the1940 exhibition of the 75^th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and other murals testified to the contributions of African-Americans leaders, activists, and workers.  White painted the lives and history of African Americans workers—from sharecroppers to musicians to neighborhood people at a time when African-Americans were silenced or only portrayed negatively in art, history books, and the media.  He was among the group of artists that organized the South Side Community Art Center, which was supported by the Roosevelt administration and the pockets of people in Bronzeville, along with Margaret Goss Burroughs, Gordon Parks, Eldizer Cortor, and Archibald Motley.   Leaving Chicago in the 1940s, White never wavered from his commitment to using his art as a weapon for social justice. He said, “Paint is the only weapon I have in which to fight.” In honoring Charles White, the ILHS also pays homage to the other WPA artists in Illinois that painted murals portraying workers in Chicago and across Illinois, particularly, Mitchell Siporin, Edmund Britton, and Edward Millman.

Alejandro Romero

Alejandro Romero began his studies in 1967 at the Academy of San Carlos of the National School of Fine Arts and finished his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. Growing up in Mexico, he was influenced by his neighbor and mentor, the David Alfaro Siqueiros—a key influence for all muralists, and in England, he was profoundly affected by the muralist Charles Spencer who depicted the British industrial workers.  Moving to Chicago in 1976, Romero has created art for unions, community organizations, and other concerns.  His murals’ strikingly vivid colors bring joy, power, and life to his portrayals of communities, working people, and revolutionary leaders. His labor murals for the Central States Council, Chicago Federation of Labor, and Joliet Community Public Arts program feature workers in the service, steel, construction and trades, cultural arts, medical, and transportation industries. Each Romero mural is a celebration.

Kathleen Farrell

Since the 1970s, Kathleen Farrell has painted murals that portray the lives of communities and working people from the walls of Joliet to the halls of international unions in Washington, D.C.  Whether the mural is for the Will-Grundy Counties Central Trades and Labor Council or Jobs with Justice, Farrell’s unique use of realism and rich colors seem to shine rays of light upon her subjects and do honor to the dignity and craft of men and women on the job: poultry workers, bricklayers, printers, laborers, electricians, service workers, stonecutters, canal workers, and musicians. Often not overtly political, the beauty of the workers and community people in the murals explicitly challenges the viewer to recognize the real builders of this country.  Mentored by Mark Rogovin (who help to form Public Art Workshop and Chicago Muralist Group),  Farrell teaches others to make murals through the Labor Heritage Foundation Great Labor Arts Exchange and the Friends of Community Art in Joliet, and consistently brings members into the experience of painting. She says, “Workers in general have not been exposed to the pleasure and power of art, and by bringing them together to paint the mural, they found it was fun, exciting, and interesting…It was something that enriched their lives, something they’d never thought about before.” In 1991, Farrell co-founded the Friends of Community Public Art with Kathleen Scarboro and others which has transformed Joliet’s walls into a testament to the history of this this important working class city.  The ILHS also recognizes the instrumental collaborative work of Katherine Scarboro.  Farrell lives in Joliet.

Mike Alewitz

The ILHS Union Hall of Honor recognizes the mural work and other artistic agiprop for justice of Mike Alewitz.  Most known in Chicago for his “Teamsters Power” mural, Alewitz has created murals, banners, puppets, and memorials to promote and be part of the struggles for human rights, dignity, and liberty.  Unlike the WPA murals that could not depict any overt political message, Alewitz’s powerful murals do not hide and take any prisoners.  Alewitz says, “I don’t paint murals that are easily understood.  Art must be challenging.  And the labor movement must be challenged and we must be challenged.” In his murals for international unions, Alewitz’s work has taken have him to Chernobyl in the Ukraine to Mexico.  Like, Farrell, Alewitz brings the community into the powerful activity of painting murals that he has created. He teaches at Central Connecticut State College and co-runs the Labor Art and Mural Project. The ILHS also recognizes Daniel Manrique Ariras, a Mexican muralist that made the UE hall mural and collaborated with Alewitz on a UE Chicago-Mexico project.

 

The Illinois Labor History Society remembers William Walker, painter the groundbreaking murals, “The Wall of Respect” and “The Worker”, who died October 2011.  Walker was inducted into the Union Hall of Honor in 1988.

Reg Weaver
President, National Education Association
Born to an Illinois coal mining family in 1939, Reg Weaver has devoted his life to education and organizing educators. He spent 30 years in the Harvey school system and served as president of the Illinois Education Association from 1981 to 1997. Weaver led a 15 year struggle for a comprehensive collective bargaining law for all public education institutions in Illinois. That bill was passed and signed into law by Governor Thompson in 1983 and remains the foundation of collective bargaining today. Now in his second term as President of the National Education Association, Weaver maintains a world wide reputation as an effective champion of public education. In addition to his leadership in the NEA, Weaver also serves as the Vice President of Education International, an organization that represents 29 million teachers and education workers in 169 countries.

 

 

Ella Flagg Young

President, National Education Association, 1910

Born in 1845, Ella Flagg Young became an elementary school teacher in Chicago at the age of 17. For the rest of her life she was at the forefront of the struggle to empower the teaching profession towards the goal of educating the whole child and the creation of a democratic society. Young rejected the Board of Education model for the school in which the teacher was in the role of an assembly line worker, merely pasting prescribed bits of information into the heads of the children as they passed through the school house. She became the first woman to head a great metropolitan school system as Chicago’s superintendent of Schools from 1909 to 1915. She saw clearly that teachers needed union organization if they were to be heard, and proved her mettle as a valiant defender of teachers, including their right to organize. As the Chicago Federation of Teachers grew in power under Margaret Haley and Catherin Goggin, Young tried to mediate in the increasing tensions with the Board of Education. But in 1915, after the enactment of the “Loeb Rule” by the Chicago Board of Education, resulting in the discharge of 68 teachers for refusing to withdraw from the Chicago Federation of Teachers, Young resigned from her position as superintendent.

The Loeb Rule

(Named for Jacob Loeb, President of the Chicago Board of Education)

“Membership by teachers in labor unions or in organizations of teachers affiliated with a trade union or a federation or association of trade unions, as well as teachers’ organizations which have officers, business agents, or other representatives who are not members of the teaching force, is inimical to proper discipline, prejudicial to the efficiency of the teaching force, and detrimental to the welfare of the public school system.  Therefore, such membership, affiliation, or representation is hereby prohibited.”

Richard Rowe
"Historian of his union, teacher of Apprenticeship Trainers, Business Agent/Organizer of Local 63."
One of the most important accomplishments of the Iron Workers Union has been in their establishment of a comprehensive training program for apprentices, which has helped to keep the industry and the union vigorous throughout their 110 years of existence. The Iron Workers have played an important role in the study and preservation of labor history, and Richard Rowe, Business Agent and Organizer for Local 63 of Chicago has provided the momentum behind labor education in his organization. Rowe teaches Apprenticeship Trainers from around the country yearly, educating on the history of the Iron Workers, but also on the general history of the labor movement, recognizing the importance of an understanding of industrial relations for all workers. In addition, Rowe teaches at apprenticeship programs throughout the year, and is working on updating the History of the Iron Workers, which he originally authored with William Adelman in 1996.

 

	George W. Geary
	"Organizer at the 1896 founding of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, Chicagoan is known today as “founding father”."
	With the 1896 founding of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, a collective organization was born for the purpose of bargaining with the U.S. Steel Corporation and the American Bridge Company, and George Geary of Chicago led its efforts as International Organizer. Now expanded and in existence for over 110 years, the Iron Workers have overcome many obstacles to leave their mark on labor history as a strong and spirited force for workers. The union survived an extended period of conflict with the steel erectors, beginning in 1906, and maintains its power today through mastery of the skills required by evolving construction technology.

Joe Hill
"Itinerant organizer for the IWW and labor ballader for the ages."
Hill was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical group aiming to mobilize and serve unrepresented industrial workers. The confrontational, colorful organization had its own distinctive culture, and it found its most famous voice in Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant with a talent for writing provocative and inspiring song lyrics to familiar tunes. The songs Hill penned spread throughout the country and even after the Palmer Raids severely weakened the IWW, these verses remained classics of labor struggles and are widely sung to this day.

 

	Upton Sinclair
	"Author of the 1905-06 classic, The Jungle, an account of the deadly exploitation of Chicago’s immigrant workers."
	Although published more than 100 years ago, Sinclair’s monumental work The Jungle is still widely read today, and continues to provide inspiration for those confronting oppressive and unsafe conditions. The Jungle details the story of a meatpacking plant worker. Its expose of unsanitary conditions and distribution of meat products caused so great of an uproar that the federal government was forced to impose universal inspection mechanisms on meat processing. The book dealt a severe blow to the unimpeded power of corporations and not only made sanitation and workplace conditions part of the American consciousness, but also brought to light issues of oppressive treatment of workers and the ensuing social deterioration.

Franklin and Penelope Rosemont
"Faithful stewards of the Charles H. Kerr Company, publishers of labor and radical classics since 1886."
The Rosemonts have brought the Kerr imprint into the 21st century by continuing to expand their list of radical, socialist, and labor publications. The Kerr Company was created in 1886 to provide public access to imperative books on these subjects, and over the years has helped countless voices for justice to find an audience. The Kerr courageous venture is being carried on, enhanced by recent reprintings of classic Kerr works on radicalism and labor, such as the Autobiography of Mother Jones.

Father Martin B. Mangan
"Eloquent spokesman for human rights; resolute defender of social justice; pastor to the labor movement of Decatur."
During the struggles of organized labor in Decatur throughout the 1990s, there was no figure more committed to justice and unionism than Father Mangan, beloved priest and voice of the people. A native of Springfield, Illinois, Father Mangan chose to devote his life to activism and labor causes, and served various communities throughout Illinois before settling in Decatur. There he was active in neighborhood groups and community programs, and served as a leader in labor confrontations with corporations such as Caterpillar Tractor and Bridgestone-Firestone. He resisted attempts by corporations at silencing him, and became an avid student of labor history, staying involved in the struggle for workers’ rights until his death in 2001.

 

	Leslie F. Orear
	"A lifetime committed to working people; making labor history as eloquent voice for The Packinghouse Worker and preserving labor history as guiding light for the ILHS."
	Les Orear began working in the meat packing industry in Chicago during the Great Depression, and was one of the first workers to sign up to be represented by the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee of the CIO in 1936. He became the editor of its national newspaper The Packinghouse Worker in 1937. He was sent to work on the organizing staff of the union and returned as assistant to the vice-president in charge of organization. In the early 1950s he returned to the editorship of the national newspaper where he remained until the merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in 1968. Orear stayed on as a staff assistant to the national officers until his retirement after 40 years of service to his union. In 1969, he founded the Illinois Labor History Society and was elected as president, a role he served until 2006, then becoming president emeritus.

Herman Lilien
"Elected in 1903 to be the first President of the newly formed International Hod Carriers and Building Laborers Union."
An immigrant from Belgium, Lilien was elected president of the International Hod Carriers’ and Building Laborers’ Union of America at its founding in 1903. During Lilien’s service as President of Local 4 in Chicago, AFL President Samuel Gompers called the handful of existing local unions to convene in Washington D.C. to create a national union. Under Lilien’s leadership following the convention, the union experienced a period of tremendous growth.

 

	Peter Fosco
	"As its President from 1968 to 1975, transformed LIUNA into a union ready for the 21st Century."
	Over the course of his years of service as its president from 1968 to 1975, Fosco helped to transform the Laborers’ International Union of America into a modern organization. Fosco immigrated from Italy as a young man of remarkable talents, and soon rose to the presidency of his local union, the Sewer and Tunnel Miners, Local 2 of Chicago. He entered politics with his election to the Senate of the Illinois Legislature. After serving as the General Secretary Treasurer to the International Union, he became General President. Under his leadership, key national agreements were reached, union benefit programs were expanded, the Laborers’ National Pension Fund was created, and a national training program was established.

	Mother Jones
	Grand Icon of American Labor
	Known from America's east coast to west coast as "Mother Jones", Mary Harris became American Labor's heroine from the 1890's until her death in 1930. Buried with her "boys" in the Union Miners Cemetery, Mount Olive, Illinois, she remains a potent symbol of labors on-going struggle for the fruits of its labor. She was an organizer and champion of the working people. While in her eighties, she was court-martialed and jailed by the State Militia of West Virginia. During the famous coalmine strike of 1913-14 she was "deported" from Colorado by the military of that state! A West Virginia prosecutor called her "the most dangerous woman in America".

Mollie Lieber West
A Life in the Struggle.
While still a teenager she experienced a baptism under fire during the citywide demonstration in support of the Republic Steel strikers, where ten died in the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937. Radicalized by that event, Mollie West plunged into labor politics and union building. As a mature woman she entered the printing trade, becoming an expert proofreader and union activist. She was elected to the Executive Board of her union, and has been a Delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor, and to the Illinois State AFL-CIO, as well. She was a founding member of Chicago CLUW. She has been the Administrative Secretary and full-time volunteer at the office of the Illinois Labor History Society for over twenty years.

	Marvin Gittler
	A Chicago attorney whose labor union practice began in 1967.
	A youth from the garment district of New York City, who graduated from the University of Chicago in 1963, Marvin Gittler began his practice of law at the National Labor Relations Board. He left the board to join an important firm with a broad labor clientele, ranging from the Building Trades to the Teamsters and Meatcutters.

Irving Friedman
Long the legal counsel for both the Farm Equipment Workers and the United Auto Workers in the Illinois region.
Graduating from New York University Law School, this son of Polish immigrants became a staff attorney for the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago. In 1952, he was the Government's lead attorney in a famous case involving the UAW and the Koehler Company. In partnership with Harold Katz, Friedman was connected closely with the UAW and the Farm Equipment Workers. In more recent years, he has been Counsel to Chicago's Longshoremen and the Illinois Education Association.

	Eugene Cotton
	General Counsel to the United Packinghouse Workers of America
	Cotton's legal career reaches back to the precedent-creating era of the New Deal with its passage of a wide range of reform legislation, including the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, then hailed as "labor's magna carta". With his legal degree from Columbia University in 1936, Cotton moved swiftly through a variety of new government agencies, before becoming Assistant General Counsel of the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). He moved from Washington to Chicago in 1948 to become General Counsel of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). There he was plunged into a two-month long national strike. At the UPWA, he helped the union to create a system of nationwide agreements which brought about new wage and benefit provisions. Among his other clients were unions in the printing and aviation industries.

	John Brown Lennon
	“A national officer of the early AFL, a Labor Party candidate, and skilled tailor.”
	Lennon advanced the cause of workers through a number of offices which he occupied. A tailor by trade, Lennon joined the Journeyman Tailors Union in 1871 where he soon rose to a position of leadership. Lennon sought to promote the rights of all organized workers on a national level as AFL treasurer during 1890-1917. He worked to improve working conditions of the US Department of Labor during World War I.

Patrick H. Morrissey
“An immigrant’s son who rebuilt the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen after the Pullman Strike.”
Morrissey was instrumental in rejuvenating the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. In 1894 he became this union’s Grand Master, increased membership, financial standing, and stressed solidarity with other unions on a national scale.

	Studs Terkel
	Brought the voices of workers to the public through print, radio and television.
	In his early career as an actor, Studs clearly knew he was a fellow worker. In fact, he was a charter member of the Radio Actors Union (AFRA), which subsequently became the American Federation of Radio and Television Actors-Screen Actors Guild (AFTRA-SAG). The tools of his trade for the last fifty years have been the portable tape recorder and trusty microphone. Through his weekly radio program, PBS documentaries and best selling book WORKING, it has been his skill to evoke from his subjects their true feelings about their lives and the social realities in which they carry on.

Joyce Miller
“Spokesperson for the working women; bringer of human services to a union setting.”
Miller began her career as the education director of the Midwest Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. She initiated weekend classes, conferences, and week-long summer schools all aimed at empowering workers toward political action. As vice-president of the AFL-CIO during 1980-1993, Miller sought programs for the retired, family stability, childcare facilities, and low income housing.

 

	Jane Addams
	“Preeminent Reformer of her time, whose Hull-House with its Jane Club nurtured and developed many young women into union leadership.”
	Addams was a social reformer, suffragist, and pacifist active at the turn of the century. She was the founder of Hull House which provided social and medical services to the impoverished of Chicago. Addams served as vice-president of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association in 1911. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 as an advocate for world peace throughout her life.

 

Bessie Abramowitz Hillman
“An immigrant sewing girl whose bold acts launched the great men’s clothing strike of 1910, and the birth of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union.”
Hillman actively promoted workers’ rights in general and the rights of women in particular. She was instrumental in the United Garment Workers strike in 1910 against Hart, Schaffner, and Marx. Hillman sought female solidarity as an organizer for the Women’s Trade Union League. In 1919 the clothing industry had become unionized due to her efforts in organizing the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

	Alma Washington
	“For many years we have applauded the passionate embrace of labor’s cause by Lucy Parsons as performed by Alma Washington.”
	Throughout the 1990s Washington has portrayed Lucy Parsons, a key figure, in Come Along with Me by Kathlyn Miles. This performance is part of the Women’s Labor History Theatre Project which performs before school groups. Washington is active in the Actors’ Equity organization.

 

William Walker
“For his powerful gifts to public art in Chicago, and especially his great mural, The Worker.”
Walker painted the great mural of working class history on the exterior south wall of the Charles Hayes Family Investment Center. Although the mural depicts packinghouse workers in particular, Walker believed that his work was universal to all workers which stressed labor empowerment.

 

	Paul Robeson
	“Ever ready to offer his many talents to the service of peace, justice, and labor.”
	As an artist, Robeson has sought to create works which empower organized labor. He was a singer as well as an actor who became a supporter of labor and civil rights. Robeson’s compositions inspire worker solidarity and is prominent among the United Packinghouse Workers.

Governor John Peter Altgeld
“Elected governor with strong support from labor and genuine friend of labor.”
As governor of Illinois during 1892-1896, Altgeld worked to make the Democratic Party more responsive to the needs of organized labor. He signed the first workplace sanitation law and child labor law in Illinois. Altgeld recognized the right of workers to protest through strikes, and therefore, denounced President Cleveland’s sympathy for employers in the Great Pullman Strike of 1894. In addition, he pardoned the imprisoned Haymarket Martyrs.

Federation News - Founded in 1919 by John Fitzpatrick and Edward Nockels

Federation News served as the voice of the Chicago Federation of Labor. It has used labor history to illuminate current issues as well as events and promoted labor education in schools. In 1995, Federation News received five awards in labor history from the International Labor Communications Association.

Labor Paper

“For 100 years a potent voice on behalf of labor in central Illinois.”

Began in 1896 by Walter S. Bush, Labor Paper reports on union activities, bargaining challenges, and successes throughout central Illinois. Labor Paper, a weekly periodical, is opperated by the West Central Illinois Building and Construction Council and reports on the activities of over fifty labor unions in Illinois.

	Margaret Blackshere
	“Possessor of a brilliant career as the teacher union’s top legislative advocate, now Illinois labor’s foremost woman leader.”
	Throughout her career Blackshere advanced women’s participation in the Democratic Party and organized labor. She has served as a delegate of the Democratic National Convention during 1980-1992 and promoted the candidacy of women at all levels within the Democratic Party. Blackshere promoted teachers’ rights as the president of the American Federation of Teachers and the Secretary-Treasurer of the Illinois State AFL-CIO.

 

Mary McDowell
“In 1903, the first president of the Chicago’s Women’s Trade Union League, and in 1913, victorious leader of the struggle for women’s suffrage in Illinois.”
From the settlement house movement at the turn of the century, McDowell sought to promote trade unionism, safer working conditions, shorter hours, women’s suffrage, improved sanitary conditions, and inter-racial harmony. She was the founder of Local 183 for female employees in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen. McDowell promoted female labor activism in 1903 when she established the Women’s Trade Union League and was president of the Illinois branch.

 

	Louis Pardo
	“Skilled machinist, long-time leader of his union, and champion registrar of voters.”
	As a significant union activist, Pardo was concerned with occupational safety and minority rights. He began his career as a tool and dye makers. He promoted the rights of workers as president of the International Association of Machinists as well as the vice-president, trustee; delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor and the Illinois State AFL-CIO.

Jacqueline Vaughn
“Tough but fair, calm yet inspired, leader of a great union, a teacher with a vision.”
As leader in organized labor, Vaughn has promoted the rights of teachers in Chicago and improvement in education. As a leader and spokesperson for the CTU she advocated education reform: a better learning environment in the classroom and better instruction for students. Vaughn successfully lobbied for a one million dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation in support of improving education in Chicago with the formation of the Quest Center. She sought higher salaries for teachers as a leader in the CTU, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

	Eugene Debs
	“A dynamic and visionary leader of the 19th century railroad workers; preeminent spokesman for the Socialist labor tradition; beloved by those whose lives he touched.”
	Debs was active in organized labor, but believed that real gains could only be achieved through political power. At the age of nineteen in 1874, he became active in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. By 1893, Debs was a co-founder of the American Railway Union which claimed over 150,000 members. During the early 1900s, he concluded that political power was essential to working class rights. Debs became the foremost leader of the Socialist Party and received over one million votes in the 1920 presidential election.

 

Jennie Curtis
“At age nineteen, the President of the 'Girls' Local at the Pullman Shops in 1894. She was articulate and vivacious.”
At the age of nineteen, Curtis was president of the 'Girls' Union 269, the Sewing Rooms, which had a membership of one-hundred twenty-five workers. As a union activist for the Sewing Rooms which provided drapes and curtains for Pullman palace cars, Curtis was instrumental in the Pullman Strike of 1894. She testified before the US Senate in an investigation of the strike.

 

	William J. Adelman
	“The popular and peripatetic prophet of labor history; teacher, author, lecturer, and tireless tour leader.”
	Throughout his career, Adelman has promoted the history of Chicago labor. For twenty-five years he served as professor at the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois. In 1969, he was a co-founder of the ILHS and has published numerous books on labor history: Touring Pullman: Labor Sites in the Chicago Area, Haymarket Revisited, and Pilsen: A Tour Guide. During the 1990s Adelman has lectured on Chicago labor and ethnic history before a variety of unions and community groups.

Margaret A. Haley
“A pioneer of teacher unionism in Chicago, a founder of the American Federation of Teachers, political reformer, and nemesis of corporate tax dodgers.”
Until her death in 1939, Haley was active in promoting the rights of Chicago school teachers. As a leader of the Chicago Teachers Federation she fought for the protection of the pension program. She served as an intermediary between organized labor and the city and state authorities for the rights of teachers. During the Progressive Era Haley successfully lobbied for state funding for Chicago schools.