Goddess of Anarchy
Page 51
34. “go on and on… dead”: Ahrens, ed., Lucy Parsons, 155–159.
35. Cleveland PD, September 3, 1931; Robert W. Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century of Progress Expositions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 111; “Old Timers”: LP to Nold, January 17, 1933, Nold Papers, Labadie Collection.
36. “Baskets of fried”: Studs Terkel’s Chicago, 32–33; Michael J. Dennis, The Memorial Day Massacre and the Movement for Industrial Democracy (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010); Ahmed White, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016); “Police Repulse”: CT, May 31, 1937, 1.
37. “They are very good”: Michael Boda, “An Unpublished 1934 Letter from Lucy Parsons,” Pittsburgh GE, October 13, 2009; David M. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 344–379; David Roediger and Franklin Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1986), 178; Audio Cassette #3, Ashbaugh Papers.
38. “I tell the world”: Kwando M. Kinshasa, ed., The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words: Selected Letters, 1931–1950 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014), 88; CT, March 19, 1932, 6.
39. “wind that has blown… speed”: LP to Carl Nold, February 27, 1934, Nold Papers, Labadie Collection; Audio Cassette #1, Ashbaugh Papers; Anne M. Kornhauser, Debating the American State: Liberal Anxieties and the New Leviathan, 1930–1970 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); OBUM, April 1937, 33; ibid., February 1938, 3–8; Jacqueline Jones, American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White Labor (New York: Norton, 1998), 339–345; Andrew Cornell, Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 126.
40. “tactically flexible”: DeLeon, American as Anarchist, 109; “a girl might”: Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, 572.
41. “We couldn’t”: Nelson, American Radical, 78; “the long wait”: Weisbord quoted in Susan Ware, ed., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century, vol. 5 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 675; Powell quoted in Charles H. Martin, “The ILD and the Angelo Herndon Case,” JNH 64 (Spring 1979): 139. See also Lashawn Harris, “‘Running with the Reds’: African American Women and the Communist Party During the Great Depression,” JAAH 94 (Winter 2009): 21–43.
42. DW, April 28, 1934.
43. LP to “Mr. Schilling,” September 19, 1935, folder “Reproduced Copies of Various Articles by LP—1884 Through 1937,” Box 1, Ashbaugh Papers; “checked out… conditions”: LP to Carl Nold, September 25, 1930, Nold Papers, Labadie Collection.
44. “get together”: LP to Carl Nold, January 31, 1934, Nold Papers, Labadie Collection; “anarchism has not… today”: LP to Carl Nold, February 27, 1934, ibid.
45. “This great… depraved mind”: LP to Carl Nold, May 30, 1932, Nold Papers, Labadie Collection.
46. “dragged a man… asylum”: Richard and Anna Maria Drinnon, Nowhere at Home: Letters from Exile of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman (New York: Schocken, 1975), 94–95, 170; Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile: From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 154–155.
47. “kissed me”: Carl Nold to Max Metzkow, February 12, 1931, Box 201.8, Ishill Papers; “well and happy”: Carl Nold to Max Metzkow, August 8, 1933, Box 201.11, ibid. (translations provided by Matthew Bunn); interviews with Irving Abrams, James P. Cannon, Joseph Gigante, and Eugene Jasinksi, Box 1 and cassette tapes, Ashbaugh Papers; CT, May 4, 1938, 12.
48. DW, March 11, 1942; Beck, Hobohemia, 81–82; Eugene Jasinski and Abe Feinglass interviews, Box 1 and cassette tapes, Ashbaugh Papers; Socialist Call, December 9, 1939.
49. “Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 78th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1938–1944), vol. 10, Appendix, xxi; “Lucy Parsons was led”: Note cards, Group 10, Box 3, Ashbaugh Papers; “When I croak… fare thee well”: Chicago DN, March 11, 1942.
50. “he who died… being ‘jealous’”: Chicago DN, March 11, 1942.
51. CT, May 2, 1936, 4; “Labor to Honor… Race”: Chicago Defender, May 2, 1936, 5.
52. “radical labor’s”: CT, May 2, 1937, 18; “Arise you… stuff”: Richard Wright, “I Tried to Be a Communist,” Atlantic Monthly 174 (August 1944): 61–76; Atlantic Monthly 174 (September 1944): 48–56.
53. “fervent, democratic… faith”: Atlantic Monthly 174 (September 1944): 48–56; Hazel Rowley, Richard Wright: The Life and Times (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), chap. 16.
54. “yearly Gethsemane”: DW, October 24, 1937; Irving Abrams, Haymarket Heritage: The Memoirs of Irving S. Abrams (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1989), 32; “Lucy stepped”: Dolgoff in Roediger and Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook, 246.
55. “The crackpots”: Dolgoff, Fragments, 231; “Oh, Misery”: OBUM, November 1937.
56. Alan Calmer, Labor Agitator: The Story of Albert R. Parsons (New York: International Publishers, 1937); Carolyn Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013 [1976]), 261; Keith Rosenthal, “Lucy Parsons: ‘More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters,’” Joan of Mark, September 6, 2011, http://joanofmark.blogspot.com/2011/09/lucy-parsons-more-dangerous-than.html.
57. CT, February 23, 1941, C13; “a beautiful”: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, “Lucy Parsons: Tribute to a Heroine of Labor,” DW, March 11, 1942.
58. “Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities,” 654, 830, 1578.
EPILOGUE
1. Folder “Birth and Death Certificates of LP and Family,” Box 2, Ashbaugh Papers; death certificate on Ancestry.com.
2. Interviews, Audio Cassettes #1 and #2, folder “Acquaintances of Lucy E. Parsons,” Box 1, Ashbaugh Papers; William Morris, “‘The Signs of Change: Seven Lectures,’ Inscribed by Morris to Lucy E. Parsons,” The Saleroom, www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/stroud-auctions-ltd/catalogue-id-srstr10037/lot-9d411702–5901-43cd-8aa8-a5280092ffcd. Thanks to Mark Jacob and Stephen Keeble for bringing this sale to my attention.
3. “Lucy Parsons,” in “‘Lucy Parsons: A Tribute,’ by Dr. Ben Reitman, Labadie Collection, University of Michigan Special Collections; Chicago Sun, March 12, 1942; CT, March 9, 1942, 16.
4. Reitman’s letter to the editor of the Chicago DN, written on the day of Parsons’s funeral (March 12, 1942), is contained in folder 245, Box 22, Ben Lewis Reitman Papers, University of Illinois at Chicago, Special Collections, Richard J. Daley Library; George Markstall to Ben Reitman, July 20, 1941, ibid.; Andrew Cornell, Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 283; Studs Terkel’s Chicago (New York: New Press, 1985), 23; Irving Abrams, Haymarket Heritage: The Memoirs of Irving S. Abrams (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1989), 35.
5. “until recently”: Charles H. Dennis, “On the Passing of Dark Lucy,” Chicago DN, March 11, 1942; “Lucy Parsons, participant”: ISJ, March 17, 1942; Sander Garlin, “Lucy Parsons Carried Out Bequest of Her Husband, a Hero of American Labor,” Daily Worker, March 11, 1942. See also Rockford R-R, March 11, 1942, which says she was “just a wisp of the fiery woman who 54 years ago struggled with policemen in an attempt to say farewell to her husband, soon to be hanged.”
6. Socialist Call, March 28, 1942; “was proud”: DW, March 10, 1942; “What a great”: ibid., March 11, 1942.
7. Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Probate Estate File #42-P-1836 (Estate of Lucy Parsons Markstall). See, especially, the bill submitted by Sademan and Finfrock, Funeral Directors, March 11, 1942. A copy of her short will is in the file “Anarchism—Parsons, Lucy,” in Labadie Papers, University of Michigan Special Collections.
8. “Chicana socialist”: Alma M. García, Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (London: Routledge, 1997), 224; Matt
S. Meier, ed., Mexican-American Biographies: A Historical Dictionary (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988), 96–97; “the first Black woman”: Darlene Clark Hine, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Torberg-Penn, eds., Black Women in America (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993), 909–910.
9. Kathryn Rosenfeld, “Looking for Lucy (in All the Wrong Places),” Social Anarchism, January 31, 2005; “Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons,” Chicago Park District, n.d., www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks/Lucy-Ella-Gonzales-Parsons/#f8pk04x605.
10. This question is inspired by James C. Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).
11. “when labor… and be free”: Liberator, October 8, 1905.
12. See, for example, Bryan Burrough, America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (New York: Penguin, 2015).
13. See, for example, “Chicago Police Department Plagued by Systemic Racism, Task Force Finds,” NYT, April 14, 2016, A1; “Excessive Force Is Rife in Chicago, U.S. Review Finds,” NYT, January 14, 2017, A1. On Lucy Parsons Labs, see https://lucyparsonslabs.com.
Index
Abramowitz, Esther (Foster’s wife, Lucy’s boarder), 287
Abrams, Irving (PASA member), 319–320, 332
Addams, Jane (reformer)
and anti-war movement, 299, 305–306
at Congress on Labor, 242
defends Bowen Hall meeting, 296
Hull House, 224, 240, 256, 294–296
on McKinley assassination, 257
and reform movement, 224–225, 297
Addis, Henry (editor of Firebrand), 245, 246, 248
African Americans
black nationalism, 321, 330
black papers, 241, 301–302, 329
Carrollton (MS) massacre, 127–128, 178
Chicago black community, 55–56, 240–242, 300–301, 309–310, 329–330, 335, 349–350
and Communist Party, 328–330, 335, 339–340
Lucy labeled as, 176–177, 339, 345, 346
Lucy’s distance from, xi–xii, xiii, 56, 128, 138, 178, 272, 301–302, 330
socialists dismiss black civil rights, 72, 79–80, 240–241
as strikebreakers, 125, 240, 241, 266, 267, 268, 301–302, 310, 316
Texas Republicans support civil rights for, 26–27, 32, 35
See also slavery
African Blood Brotherhood, 321, 330
Agitator (paper), 283, 287
Alarm (paper)
Albert as editor of, 94, 99, 108–109
Albert disavows articles in, 140
Albert’s farewell in, 197–198
and Board of Trade building protest, 97
circulation of, 109
on conservative elements of Chicago unions, 118
end of, 227
as evidence in Haymarket trial, 149
fundraising efforts for, 112
Lucy’s articles in, 102–103, 127–128, 211, 215
other editors of, 114, 186, 227
pieces about Lucy in, 127, 216
promotes violence, 106, 107, 146, 149, 349
reformism denounced in, 123
on religion, 122
revival of, 295
on Thanksgiving holiday, 123
on women’s roles in IWPA, 109, 110
alcohol
consumed by anarchists, 111, 124, 253
temperance movement, 121, 123
Alexander II (Russian czar), 105
Altgeld, John Peter (judge, later IL governor), 219, 235, 236, 259
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 230
American Farmer, The (Simons), 272
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
IWW opposes, 264, 267, 268
replaces Knights of Labor, 212–213
unions affiliated with, 225, 281–282, 284, 287
American Group. See International Working People’s Association (IWPA), American Group of
American Magazine of Civics, 253
American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC), 330
American Railway Union, 236, 240–241
American Revolution, evocations of, 121, 264
Ames, Sarah (socialist), 143, 152
anarchism
authorities fear, 243, 254–255, 280–281, 305–307
vs communism, 211, 319–320, 326
failure of, 336
infighting among, 211–212
Lucy’s version of, 260–261, 331, 334, 347–348
the Parsonses endorse, 89–92
and political violence, 105, 255–256, 256–257
popular perceptions shift, 297, 347–348
and response to WWI, 299
See also Central Labor Union; International Working People’s Association (IWPA); radical papers
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis (Parsons, A.), 92, 196–197, 200, 205, 211, 214
anarchist-communists, 211
anarchist-individualists, 211
anarchist-socialists, 211
anarcho-syndicalism, 320, 326
Anglo American Times, 158
Anthropological Society of Chicago, 281
anticolonial struggles, 212, 251
Anti-Monopoly Party, 54
antiwar movement, 251, 299, 304–307
Arbeiter Zeitung (paper), 56
and Albert, 85, 86
and Board of Trade building protest, 97–98
circulation of, 109
disparages TLA, 130
fundraiser event for, 84
and Haymarket events, 130–131, 132, 135–136, 149, 154
offices of, 97–98, 132, 135–136, 150
Spies as editor of, 91
Armour, Philip D. (meatpacking magnate), 49, 121, 172
Ashbaugh, Carolyn (Lucy’s first biographer), xiv, 310
assassinations, 105, 230, 255, 257
atheism, 122, 321
attentat (burst of violence that would ignite a revolution), 90, 105
Austin Daily State Journal, 34
Austin Vorwarts (Forward), 34
Averbuch, Lazarus (anarchist), 280, 281
ballot, the. See voting
Baron, Aron (Russian Jewish anarchist), 295, 304, 324–325
Baron, Fanny (Russian Jewish anarchist), 295, 304, 324
Battle of the Viaduct (1877), 64
Baylor University, 14, 253
Beck, Frank O. (chronicler of Hobohemia district), 322
Bellamy, Edward (writer), 51, 228
Belton, Texas, 36
Benton, Oliver (formerly Oliver Gathings; possible father of Lucy’s first child), 227
death of, 310
enslavement of, 7
family of, 157, 253
financial support of Lucy, 16–17, 20, 21
and Lucy’s affair with Albert, 29–30, 156–159
in the media, 137, 156–157, 158
moves to Waco, 12
name change of, 42
Berkman, Alexander (anarchist), 230, 278, 307, 311
Berlin Heights (free-love community in Ohio), 73
Bernstein, Eduard (London anarchist), 217
Besant, Annie (English labor organizer), 216
Biegler, Martha (“Red Martha”) (socialist), 322
birth control, 273–274
Black, William (attorney)
at Albert’s funeral, 206
and Albert’s surrender in Haymarket trial, 142, 143, 155, 325
opinion of Albert’s treatment in Haymarket trial, 148, 149, 155
questions witnesses in Haymarket trial, 150
reminisces in Life of Albert, 227
urges Albert to petition for clemency, 199
Black Codes (1865–1866), 13–14, 19
Black International. See International Working People’s Association (IWPA)
Black Metropolis (Drake and Cayton), 335
black nationalism, 321, 330
bloodthirstiness, language o
f
of Galleanists, 309
and Lizzie Swank, 73
in Lucy’s speech, 170–171, 184, 222, 229–230, 245
by press, 93, 101, 102, 192, 249
of Russian anarchist manifesto, 146
“Bloody Sunday” (London, 1887), 216
“Bloody Sunday” (St. Petersburg, 1905), 266, 279–280
Board of Trade building attack (1885), 96–98, 146
boardinghouse, Lucy as proprietor of, 221, 250, 252, 280, 287, 311, 332
Bohemian Sharpshooters (militia group), 81
Bolton, H. W. (minister), 201
Bomb, The (Harris), 278
Bonfield, John (Chicago police chief)
at Haymarket, 133, 134
is dismissed from police force, 218
Lucy detained by, 214
Lucy on, 172, 192, 206
and repression by police force, 126, 141, 151
Breckinridge, Sophonisba (Hull House settlement worker), 296
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 236
Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, 288
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 330
Browder, Earl (activist), 287
Brown, John (abolitionist), 145
Brown, Thomas (anarchist), 135, 153
Buchanan, Joseph R. (editor of Labor Enquirer), 92, 145, 186, 187, 199, 204–205
Bughouse Square (Washington Park), Chicago, 285, 315, 320
Burden, Jane (English socialist), 215–216
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau), 12–13, 17, 19, 38
Burke, Edmund (philosopher), 99
Burleson, Rufus C. (president of Baylor University), 253
Burns, Tom (IWW organizer), 292
business interests
in Great Railroad Strike, 64–65
growth of in Chicago, 49, 51–53
Republican support for in Texas, 26, 34–35
Byron, George Gordon, Lord (poet), 82
Call (socialist paper), 338, 345
Calmer, Alan (writer), 341
cannery strike, Portland OR (1913), 292–293
Cannon, James P. (ILD leader), 316, 326–327
Capital: Critique of Political Economy (Marx), 54
capitalism
evolutionary, 51
industrial capitalism, 334
Lucy’s understanding of, xi
mobster capitalism, 318
welfare capitalism, 317, 334
workers’ faith in, 334