Community and Solidarity: Organizing in Chicago’s Steel Mills
In 1980, a Chicago steel mill called Wisconsin Steel Works, large enough to take up most of South Deering, a community area on the city’s far South Side, closed its … Learn More
Tag: labor history
The Henrici’s Restaurant Waitress Strike
February 2024 marks 110 years since the start of a labor action commonly known as the Henrici’s restaurant waitress strike. In this blog post, CHM editor and content manager Heidi … Learn More
Filipinos and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
October is Filipino American History Month, which commemorates the first Filipinos to arrive on the North American continent at what is now Morro Bay, California, on October 18, 1587. In … Learn More
John Kikulski and the Labor Movement
To mark Labor Day 2023, CHM editor Heidi Samuelson writes about Polish-born John Kikulski, a Chicago labor leader in the early twentieth century. You can see more about Kikulski in … Learn More
An Eagle Forgotten: John Peter Altgeld
June 26, 2023, marks the 130th anniversary of Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld pardoning three men who were wrongfully imprisoned for their connections to the Haymarket affair. In this blog … Learn More
Sidney Lens: The Unrepentant Radical
For Labor Day, we’re highlighting the work of labor leader, antiwar activist, and author Sidney Lens, whose papers are archived at CHM. Ask about them on your next visit to … Learn More
The Teamsters Union in Chicago
In recognition of International Workers’ Day, we’re spotlighting the Teamsters Union and its history in Chicago. Historically, the term “teamsters” referred to commercial road transportation workers. Before 1945, most teamsters … Learn More
“Solidarity Forever!”
In 1889, an international group of socialist party members and trade union representatives designated May 1 as a day in support of workers in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago and the subsequent trial … Learn More
“Women were there”: The Coalition of Labor Union Women
“In all of the major struggles and minor struggles of the organized labor movement, even though history doesn’t always record it, women were there.” —Reverend Addie L. Wyatt Group of … Learn More
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
To mark Labor Day and Chicago’s long history of labor activism, CHM assistant curator Brittany Hutchinson recounts how the Pullman Company’s porters formed the first all-Black labor union in the … Learn More