Haymarket Riot

• Carol Rivers • Dr. Chrzanowski • ENG 101 • 12 July 2009 • It was the Era during the industrial revolution (late 1800’s and early 1900’s) that people started to obtain jobs in cities. During this Era, people had much need for financial help that they would go to any means just to have food on the table each day. Workers would be taken advantage of, most of them worked in factories where pay was low, benefits where non-existent, and the work day was often 10 to 12 hours, six days a week. So It wasn’t a surprise when The evening of May 4th, 1886 came , in Chicago, Illinois A bomb was thrown by an unknown figure when a small group of anarchists, caused a crowd of some 1,500 people to gather at Haymarket Square. Policemen attempted to cease the meeting, a bomb exploded and the police opened fire on the crowd. Seven policemen and four other persons were killed, and more than 100 persons were wounded. This riot however was not just a random outbreak during a labor demonstration but rather a boiling over of a culmination of many factors that were building up in the late 19th century which eventually led down to what we remember now as the Haymarket Square riot.

Before this entire Riot came to be, we see clearly that the Industrial revolution had a strong impact on society, from agricultural to industrial it all turned around. As the number of factories continued to grow during this time, people from the country side began to move into cities looking for better paid work , since the wages of farm working were very low . Also because of the fact that there was less jobs working on farms

On May Day 1886, the workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. in Chicago began a strike in the hope of gaining a shorter work day. On