Woody Guthrie - 1913 Massacre

"1913 Massacre" is a topical ballad written by Woody Guthrie, and recorded and released in 1941 for Moses Asch's Folkways label. The song originally appeared on Struggle: Documentary No. 1, an album of labor songs [...]

Woody started writing this song around 1941. According to Pete Seeger he had the idea of the song after reading about the Italian Hall disaster in Mother Bloor's autobiography, which was titled We Are Many, which was published in 1940. Guthrie's own notes indicate that he got the idea for the song "from the life of Mother Bloor", who was an eyewitness to the events at Italian Hall on Christmas Eve, 1913. A socialist and a labor organizer from the East Coast, Bloor was in Calumet working on the miners' behalf with the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners. She was greatly assisted in this work by Annie Clemenc, also known as Big Annie of Calumet – the "lady" in Woody's song who hollers "'there's no such a thing! / Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing.'" Bloor tells the story of the Calumet strike and the Italian Hall disaster in the first half of a chapter called "Massacre of the Innocents." She devotes the second half of the chapter to events in Ludlow, Colorado in 1914, the subject of another Woody Guthrie song — "Ludlow Massacre."



[...]

Dylan performed "1913 Massacre" at Carnegie Hall in 1961. He had been working with Woody during the late winter of that year. Apparently Woody had made him aware of the song's connection (via Bloor's book) to "Ludlow Massacre"; Dylan identified "1913 Massacre" as "one of a group of two" songs. Later, he set his own tribute to Woody Guthrie —"Song To Woody" — to the tune of "1913 Massacre."

[...]

The song revolves around a tragedy that took place on December 24, 1913, in Calumet's Italian Hall. Over five hundred striking miners and their families had gathered at the Hall for a Christmas party that night. The hall could only be accessed by a steep stairway; along with a poorly-marked fire escape which could only be reached by climbing out of the windows, the stairway was the only available exit.
During the course of the party, somebody shouted "fire!", although there was no fire. However, people began to panic en masse, and rushed towards the stairway. While trying to all make their way down stairs, seventy-three people were trampled to death, fifty-nine of which were children.

Wikipedia: 1913 Massacre


Twenty witnesses testified under oath and were offered interpreters. Eight witnesses swore that the man who first raised the cry of "fire" was wearing a Citizens Alliance button on his coat.


Twenty witnesses testified under oath and were offered interpreters. Eight witnesses swore that the man who first raised the cry of "fire" was wearing a Citizens Alliance button on his coat.

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(the "Alliance"). The Alliance was funded by mine management and actively opposed the union and the strike.

[...]

Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, [...] announced that the Alliance was responsible for the catastrophe, claiming that an Alliance agent yelled the word “fire”. Members of The Alliance subsequently assaulted Moyer in nearby Hancock, then shot and kidnapped him. They placed him on a train with instructions to leave the state and never return. After getting medical attention in Chicago (and holding a press conference where he displayed his gunshot wound) he returned to Michigan to continue the work of the WFM.

The Italian Hall has since been demolished [...]

The event was memorialized by Woody Guthrie in the song "1913 Massacre", which claims that the doors were held shut on the outside by thugs.

Wikipedia: Italian Hall disaster


1913 Massacre
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire,"
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you,"
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."