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That day, striking workers and supporters rallied near the plant to support the right to unionize and picket. Gerry was among them.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, life was hard for steelworkers at Republic and other Southeast Chicago mills. Foremen decided who got work and who didn’t. Many worked only a few days a month. And they were lucky to get that.

In the steel industry, the early 19th century unions had mostly been eliminated by the 1920s. Many steelworkers had almost given up on union organizing.

George Patterson was a local steelworker and Sunday School superintendent who later became a labor organizer.

But the Depression meant that many workers, like Gerry’s fiance, Steve Borozan, had little left to lose.

Then, in 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Wagner Act, giving workers the right to unionize.

After the Wagner Act, steelworkers in the Calumet region began organizing their own independent unions.

At the time, George Patterson was a roll turner at the South Works mill of Carnegie Illinois/US Steel.

But organizing was still difficult. For decades, steel companies had used armed guards and paid company spies to infiltrate unions and deter organizing.

George Patterson had himself been offered $75 a month to become a “stool pigeon” and spy on fellow unionists.

Pro-union workers were constantly looking over their shoulders. But the Wagner Act inspired them.

The movement was spreading like wildfire. Tens of thousands signed up to join the unionizing drives of the newly-formed Congress of Industrial Workers (CIO), and its Steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC), led by veteran labor leaders John Lewis and Phil Murray.

However, the smaller steel companies including Republic, collectively known as “Little Steel,” refused.

Tom Girdler who led Republic Steel was known for being virulently anti-union.

Girdler famously said that he’d rather quit steel and go back to his farm to pick apples and potatoes than recognize the CIO.

Workers were determined to force the Little Steel companies, including Republic, to recognize the new union.

In May 1937, union leaders called for a strike.

The “Little Steel Strike” involved tens of thousands of steelworkers and their supporters across the Midwest.

It was one of the most important labor events in US history.

In Southeast Chicago, union organizers claimed that nearly three-quarters of Republic workers supported the strike. Some employees, however, wanted to keep working. A few were being paid by the company to undermine union organizing.

Union supporters called them “scabs” and “finks”.

Some in the community, including many business and church leaders, also didn’t support the strikers.

Other steelworkers and neighbors, however, supported the strikers.

The workers set up a strike headquarters at Sam’s Place, an abandoned tavern a few blocks from the mill, where union supporters would gather.

Many women were among them. While few women were laborers in the steel mills, many relatives of workers were active in union efforts. Gerry helped the Women’s Auxiliary run a soup kitchen at Sam’s Place.

In defiance of the Wagner Act, Girdler and Republic made preparations to break the strike.

It was later discovered that Republic and other Little Steel companies also stockpiled arms and ammunition in plants across the Midwest.

Between 1933 and 1937, Republic Steel was the largest purchaser of tear gas in the entire country.

Even though President Roosevelt and Chicago’s Mayor Kelly recognized workers’ right to peacefully picket, Republic’s President Girdler and the Chicago police force were opposed to the strikers.

They claimed the strikers and their sympathizers were “Bolsheviks” and “reds” planning a violent takeover of the mill.

Although only a small number of strikers among tens of thousands were communists, companies used the claim to portray them as violent and to turn public opinion against SWOC.

In the first days of the strike, efforts to legally picket were met with violence by police, under the influence of Republic Steel.

By this point, George Patterson had been fired from South Works for union activity. He had instead become a full-time SWOC organizer and had helped Republic workers to organize Local 1033.

After several days of being beaten and prevented from picketing, strikers called for a mass rally...

... on Memorial Day 1937.

Four people died on the field that day. Six more would later die from their injuries.

Nearly one hundred people were wounded, thirty by gunshots.

The U.S. Senate’s LaFollette Committee launched an investigation. Dozens of strikers, police, and bystanders were called to Washington to testify.

Lupe Marshall Gallardo, George Patterson, and many others were among them.

Gerry’s younger brother George testified that the “weapons” police claimed strikers carried was really just garbage strewn on the field.

The newsreel film contradicted the police and supported strikers’ accounts. Paramount at first refused to release the footage, fearing it would cause a riot. But the investigation subpoenaed it.

Although the strike was broken nationally, hundreds of Republic workers in Chicago held out on strike for years.

After World War II, they raised their family at a time when unions were a valued part of American life.

Steelworkers and their families were now firmly middle class.

The Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 would nationally be remembered for its significance for American workers.

Within Southeast Chicago, unions and residents continued to remember the struggle and those who died.

Gerry donated her scrapbook to the Museum in 2002. She passed away twelve years later at 96.

Her scrapbook, however, helps us remember.

Explore other union artifacts by searching the archive
or visit the “Union Life” featured exhibit.