On this day, 24 December 1913, a tragedy known as the Italian Hall disaster, or the 1913 massacre, occurred in Calumet, Michigan. The wives of copper miners who had been on strike since July organized a Christmas party at the Italian Hall. Exactly what happened next is disputed, but by the end of the night seventy-three people, fifty-nine of them miners’ children, were dead: crushed to death in the stairway as they tried to flee the crowded building.
Eight of the eyewitnesses who testified in front of a House of Representatives subcommittee reported that a man wearing a Citizens’ Alliance button yelled “fire,” leading to a crush on the stairs. Some people believe that the doors were held shut. The Citizens’ Alliance was an anti-union vigilante organisation that worked with employers to break strikes.
Learn more: https://libcom.org/history/christmas-eve-calumet-massacre-1913 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1614912038693940/?type=3