Some
Questions on Haymarket and the Late Nineteenth-Century
Labor Movement
Note: Martin Duberman is a prominent and highly-respected American historian, but Haymarket is a novel, a work of fiction. Duberman's author's note at the end (p.328) says that he has had to invent "Albert Parsons's journal, the exchange of letters between him and Lucy, and nearly all of the novel's dialogue, rumimations, and interactions," although all but one of the book's characters is real and he has stuck to the known historical record as much as possible. How does this affect your understanding of the people and events depicted in the novel? Would we have been better off reading a conventional history book about the Haymarket affair? Does his use of fictional techniques offer us insight that conventional history lacks?
Here are some questions that the readings for this topic raise:
1. What were the social conditions in Chicago (and elsewhere in the United States) that led to the growth of labor radicalism?
2. In Martin Duberman's novel, what do you think motivated Albert and Lucy Parsons to a life of radical protest?
3. Do you get the impression that they were able to combine their radical activism with a harmonious family life?
4. What impression does the novel give you about the relationship between native-born, English-speaking radicals and their foreign-born, mostly German-speaking counterparts?
5. Did the mainly-immigrant character of the radical labor movement of Chicago (and elsewhere) help or hinder its development?
6. Did the Parsons' views on violence make sense to you philosophically and politically?
7. How much responsibility did the Chicago anarchist leaders have for the deaths and injuries at Haymarket on May 4, 1886?
8. Why do you think the repression of radicals after Haymarket was so severe?
Hist 350/ Winter 2009