The Haymarket Affair

      In 1886 Chicago was the capital of American radicalism. Chicago had a highly mobilized anarchist group led by German-American immigrants. Chicago was home to many Irish and German immigrants whom came with skills of their own like baking, carpentry, metal, and more. These skills helped them attain a job. However with inventions and the use of steam powered machines wages were lowered and workers in certain fields were laid off.
   Cyrus H. McCormick whom took over his father’s company ‘McCormick Reaper Works’ after his father’s death wanted to rid the company of workers and just use machines. To do so he’d need protection because people of the labor protest. McCormick would get protection from Irish police so he hired Captain John Bonfield. On May 3rd, McCormick closed the company doors and would not let workers in. A riot broke out and shots were fired by the police. August Spies a German born American editor heard the gun shots being fired from Bonfield’s men ran to “The office of ‘Arbeiter-Zeitung’ and penned a ‘revenge circular’, calling on workers to ‘destroy the hideous monster that seeks to destroy you’. This was followed by a separate call by other anarchists for a meeting in Haymarket Square the next night to protest the killing of two workers by bonfield’s men” (Miller, 275).    

      

        The next day, May 4^th, 1886 only about twenty five hundred people showed up to the meeting at Haymarket Square. August Spies changed the meeting place to a nearby alley. Carter Harrison the Mayor watched the meeting for a bit and saw that it was peaceful so he called off Bonfield’s men. When the mayor left Bonfield sent his riot police to the meeting. However people had already started to leave due to the rain. When Bonfield’s men walked through three hundred or so “stragglers” nearing the end of Samuel Fielden’s speech a dark circular object fell from the sky landing in front of Bonfield’s men. An explosion. Police were hurt; people from both sides started firing. Seven policemen were killed and sixty injured. There was an undetermined number of civilian casualties.

“Paper’s described it as two to three minutes of wild carnage” (Miller, 245).

Haymarket Affair & Against the Day: 

    The Haymarket Affair was in 1886 and Thomas Pynchon’s novel Against the Day starts us off with the Chums of Chance heading to the Chicago World Fair. The Chicago World Fair was in 1893; the Haymarket affair was seven year prior to it. It is important because the book describes how much extra security there is around the fair. When Randolph St. Cosmo goes to see Nate Privett a detective; Nate talks about the Haymarket Bomb and how he’s had a lot more to handle since then. That if the people have been accused of the Haymarket Bomb are let free who knows what will ensue, but that they will need more security. They will need more Antiterrorist security more than ever especially with the world fair going on.

    It's good to know what exactly is going on in the book when Characters are talking. We could have read these first one hundred and eighteen pages not knowing why there was so much security at the fair. We could have just thought something along the lines of ‘of course there’s going to be a lot of security and police men, people from different countries are showing up’. Comparing it to something recent would be the ten year anniversary of 9/11 in New York with the new fountains and building. Of course you’re going to have Security, and Police men there. it may be ten years but it’s still something horrible that happened. So of course there is going to be tight security at the World Fair in Chicago.

Miller, Donald L. City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print.