Haymarket Affair - Background

Background

Following the Civil War, particularly following the Depression of 1873–79, there was a rapid expansion of industrial production in the United States. Chicago was a major industrial center and tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were employed at pauper's wages, about $1.50 a day, approximately $40 per day in 2009 dollars. American workers worked 9 to 14 hour days (on average just over 10 hours), six days a week, all year long. The city became a center for many attempts to organize labor's demands for better working conditions. Employers responded with repressive tactics, including acts of violence. These fights were carried into the pages of the press, with established newspapers facing off against the labor and immigrant press. During the economic slowdown that extended from 1882 to 1886, socialist and anarchist labor organizing was very successful. In Chicago, the anarchist movement of several thousand, mostly immigrant, workers centered about the German-language Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Workers' Times") edited by August Spies. Some anarchists were a militant revolutionary force with an armed section that was equipped with guns and explosives. Its revolutionary strategy centered around the belief that successful operations against the police and the seizure of major industrial centers would result in massive public support by workers, revolution, and establishment of a socialist economy.