United States 1922

Synopsis

On 21-22 June 1922 a coal miners' strike near the small town of Herrin in southern Illinois erupted in deadly violence. Twenty-three men were killed in the strike; all but two were strikebreakers. Along with the Chicago Battle of the Viaduct during the great railroad strike of 1877 (30 fatalities), the Homestead strike of 1892 (18), and the Ludlow Massacre in 1914 (19), the Herrin Massacre was among the deadliest single incidents of strike violence in American history. Despite impassioned cries for blood in the nation's press, no one was ever punished for any strike-related activities. A look at the causes of the massacre, its authors, and the failed efforts to punish them casts important light on the character of U.S. industrial relations during this period.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States was well known for high levels of labor violence. In large-scale strike...