Born October 7, 1879
Gävle, Sweden
Died November 19, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah

Labor organizer, songwriter, musician, and author

Joe Hill became a member of the struggling migrant working class in America upon emigrating from his native Sweden in 1902. He joined a burgeoning radical labor organization—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)—which sought to form one big union of all the world’s “producers.” Hill traveled around the United States, mostly on the West Coast, organizing underpaid and overworked workers. He urged them to stand up to their bosses with demonstrations, strikes, and—if all else failed—sabotage and violence.

Hill wrote articles for the IWW newspaper and composed folksongs for the IWW’s “Little Red Songbook.” His songs were memorized and passed along by workers everywhere. He is credited with turning the labor movement...