• Sunday-What'sUP August 14 - 09:19 pm

Next year will mark the passing of one century since the famous Copper Country Strike of 1913. There's a free program next week at Michigan Tech focusing on this event, which dominated national news at the time. Today's photo and the following invitation are from Erik Nordberg at the MTU Archives:

Class Struggle in the Copper Country: The Long View

The Michigan Tech Archival Speaker Series will feature visiting scholar Dr. Aaron Goings at 6:30pm on Tuesday, July 17 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Tech campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Goings will discuss labor history in Michigan’s Copper Country, focusing on working conditions, labor unions, and labor struggles in the years leading up to the 1913 Michigan Copper Miners’ Strike. His presentation will highlight earlier labor disputes, as well as the day-to-day struggles between workers and employers in the Copper Country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Dr. Aaron Goings is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Saint Martin’s University in Washington State. He earned his PhD from Simon Fraser University, where his dissertation addressed class and community issues in Grays Harbor, Washington. Goings is currently working with co-author Gary Kaunonen on a book to be published in 2013 by Michigan State University Press which argues that the 1913-1914 strike was the culmination of decades of regional labor struggles. The talk will conclude by discussing the national significance of this important labor event and reasons it has drifted from public memory outside of the Copper Country.

Going’s research visit and presentation is supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Van Pelt Library. Since 1998, the Michigan Tech Archives Travel Grant program has helped scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the Archives.

For more information call the Michigan Tech Archives at 487-2505 or visit their blog.

Ominous looking situation.

I noticed the notation on the photo is for June 8, 13. That was quite a crowd and from the looks of it a lot of discussion was going on amongst its members.

I am assuming this is downtown Calumet? Could you just imagine that many people on it's streets today?

I'm sure my Grandfather is somewhere in that crowd...............

The photo is the corner of Sixth and Elm looking to the north with the Calumet Theater on the right. The theater is the only recognizable building. Calumet in her glory days, or maybe not? It has been said that history repeats itself and today with labor unions crumbling, wages being lowered and prices rising I'm afraid that we are headed back to the days of the working class living in poverty.

Greetings:

Seems like a lot of heavy coats for June 8, 1913.

JT

I wonder which of the buildings in the picture still exist.

I thought the same thing, JT, but what was unique about those times was that folks 'dressed up' (suits & hats) when going to town...unlike nowadays! My dad always wore a suit and hat when going downtown even in the 1940s!

There is a danger of modern academia to interpret events such as the 1913 strike through their 21st century lens rather than from the viewpoint, standards, and rules of those who actually lived through it. The Copper Country had become a high cost producer; the natural instinct of a management that wanted to survive was to find ways to cut costs. Technology was the means. Labor, on the other hand, also wanted to survive. Technology was a threat. It has been that way forever. One side wants the most labor for its dollar, while the other side wants the most dollars for its labor. Neither side is right - or wrong.
Today we face similar issues but on a global scale, labor here faces not only technological change but also a relatively open global labor market. Despite the platitudes of our politicians, we are the high cost producers.
One little item lost in the dust bins of history is an incident in Teluride, Colorado before the 1913 strike. The Western Federation of Miners tried to assassinate one Buckelley Wells who happened to be the son-in-law of Thomas Livermore a C&H VP and friend of Jame MacNaughton. No way were MacNaughton and C&H going to deal with that Union. The Union saw C&H as the key to entering the Mid-west. The battle lines were drawn.

According to NOAA's NCDC the high temperature in Calumet that day was 55 F. Light coat weather even with today's fashions.

Paul: Thanks for the helpful analysis and comparison of then and now. My grandfather was part of the strike too, so I've always had an interest in it. (koskinishpeming for the next couple of months)

Paul,

Ditto to Kosk's comment. A very insightful explanation of the times. If you aren't a history teacher, you'd make a good one!

Thanks Dan, for researching your comment. Also, the low temp for 6/8/13 was in the 30's, chilly indeed. I enjoy weather facts myself, as my father did. He was his own walking almanac!
This area has such rich history, so important to understand. We all know the adage. Selective memory serves no one, especially those inclined to practice it. Labor struggles worldwide have often been violent, particularly in dangerous work such as mining, and the notorious Union-busting thugs that maimed, killed and terrorized remain in memory. Whatever our present day conditions are, violent action and reaction must not be considered and option. Save for the Italian Hall disaster, the Keweenaw managed better than many other areas.