The Haymarket Affair

·52 min·5 clips

A bomb into the police line kills one officer and triggers gunfire.

1. In Our Time: History examines the Haymarket Affair in Chicago after the 4 May 1886 bombing at Haymarket Square. 2. Ruth Kinner, Christopher Phelps, and Gary Gerstle bring political theory, American studies, and American history to the trial and its aftermath. 3. The episode asks how a workers' rally for the eight-hour day became a case about anarchism, police violence, and state power. 4. Gary Gerstle links the affair to post-Civil War industrialization, the 1873-1877 depression, and a labor market with no welfare-state cushion. 5. He says Chicago grew from 50,000 people in 1850 to 500,000 in the 1880s and 1.7 million by 1900. 6. He also ties the city to rail traffic, steel, meatpacking, furniture, agricultural implements, and the 1871 fire. 7. Ruth Kinner says the national May 1 strike for an eight-hour day brought about 40,000 Chicago workers out. 8. She also says the immediate trigger for the rally was the 3 May shooting at a Chicago factory, where Pinkertons killed four picketers. 9. August Spies and Albert Parsons emerge as the main organizers, both tied to the International Working People's Association and labor newspapers. 10. Christopher Phelps defines the Chicago anarchists as advocates of workers' self-governance and control of industry rather than simple violence. 11. He says they moved away from electoral politics because campaign finance was corrupt and factory workers lacked time for civic participation. 12. Gary Gerstle describes the police march into Haymarket Square, the bomb that followed, and the gunfire that killed one policeman immediately, six more police, and four civilians. 13. The bomber was never identified, but suspicion fell on eight anarchists and on Louis Ling, who had made bombs and dynamite. 14. Johann Most matters because his Freiheit, his pamphlet The Science of Revolutionary Warfare, and his doctrine of propaganda by the deed fed the prosecution's case. 15. Ruth Kinner notes that the trial featured selected articles from the Arbeiterzeitung and The Alarm, while defense lawyers cited John Stuart Mill and Victor Hugo. 16. Christopher Phelps says the case became international after the convictions, the death sentences, and the hangings on 11 November 1887. 17. The discussion is measured and explanatory, with the guests taking turns to define anarchism, propaganda by the deed, and the limits of free speech. 18. It moves between courtroom detail, labor history, and political theory without treating the bombing as the only point of the story. 19. People interested in labor history, anarchism, Chicago, and May Day would get the most from it. 20. People wanting a light narrative or a simple crime story may skip it.

As heard by us

A workers' rally, a bomb, and a trial shaped by fear of anarchist speech.

The Haymarket Affair is framed around a hard question: how did a bomb thrown at a Chicago workers' rally become a prosecution of anarchist speech?

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Why you'd press play

You want to see how a workers' rally in Chicago became a trial shaped by fear, prejudice, and arguments about violent speech.

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