take a trip with me in 1913

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1913 Massacre

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About 1913 Massacre

"1913 Massacre" is a topical ballad written by Woody Guthrie, and recorded and released in 1941 for Moses Asch's Folkways label. The song originally appeared on Struggle, an album of labor songs. It was re-released in 1999 on Buffalo Skinners: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 4 and other albums. The song is about the death of striking copper miners and their families in Calumet, Michigan, on Christmas Eve, 1913, in what is commonly known as the Italian Hall disaster.

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Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land." Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jeff Tweedy and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence. more »

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Written by: WOODIE GUTHRIE

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songs authors articles recordings books films song links union links The 1913 Massacre A Song by Woody Guthrie Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball I'll take you through a door, and up a high stairs Singing and dancing is heard everywhere I will let you shake hands with the people you see And watch the kids dance round that big Christmas tree You ask about work and you ask about pay They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day Working the copper claims, risking their lives So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives There's talking and laughing and songs in the air And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere Before you know it, you're friends with us all And you're dancing around and around in the hall Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet To hear all this fun you would not realize That the copper-boss thug-men are milling outside The copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the door One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!" A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing! Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing" A few people rushed, and it was only a few "It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you" A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down But the thugs held the door and he could not get out And then others followed, a hundred or more But most everybody remained on the floor The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke While the children were smothered on the stair by the door Such a terrible sight I never did see We carried our children back up to their tree The scabs outside still laughed at their spree And the children that died there were seventy-three The piano played a slow funeral tune And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon The parents they cried and the miners they moaned "See what your greed for money has done"

Notes From The  Digital Tradition In Calumet, Michigan, in 1913 hired copper company thugs broke up a striker's Christmas party by shouting "fire", and then barring the door. In the panic that ensued, 73 children were smothered to death. I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow. Woody Guthrie Return to top of page

union songs..........a selection by mark gregory

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Dec. 24, 1913: Calumet Italian Hall Disaster

Striking miners and their families gather outside of union headquarters in Calumet, Michigan. Source: Walter P. Reuther Library. Click image for more info.

To offer some relief to the families of copper miners of Calumet who had been on strike, a holiday party was held at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan. After the festivities had begun, someone — to this day, no one knows who — yelled “Fire!” In the rush for the stairs, 73 people (59 of them children) were crushed and suffocated to death on the stairway. There was no fire. It became known as the Italian Hall disaster.

Take a trip with me in 1913, To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country. I will take you to a place called Italian Hall, Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs, Singing and dancing is heard everywhere, I will let you shake hands with the people you see, And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

— From the song 1913 Massacre by Woody Guthrie. Read the lyrics and/or listen to it sung by  John McCutcheon.

The Copper County Reflections website has  photos of the morgue and funeral .

Below are resources for teaching outside the textbook about labor history.

Related Resources

Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. Role play on the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass.

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The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 1988. 184 pages. Role plays and writing activities project high school students into real-life situations to explore the history and contemporary reality of employment (and unemployment) in the U.S.

Labor Songs

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages. Students explore the power of songs to build solidarity and increase understanding. This is the final activity from Bigelow and Diamond’s labor history book, The Power in Our Hands , and draws on the other lessons.

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The Michigan Copper Strike of 1913

One of the industrial disputes of early 20th century America ended in a tragic accident that was remembered in folk song. Saronne Rubyan-Ling explores the cultural, ethnic, political and economic circumstances that gave rise to the bitter conflict.

Take a trip with me into 1913 To Calumet, Michigan, in the Copper Country. I'll take you to a place called the Italian Hall Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball. (Woody Guthrie)

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, 1913, strikers and their families began arriving at the Italian Hall, a two-storey brick building just over a block from Calumet’s fire station. At one end of the building a single set of double doors opened onto a straight flight of stairs to the social rooms on the upper floor. By two o'clock, over 175 adults and 500 children had crowded inside to seek relief from the stresses of the five-month-old miners' strike against the owners of the Calumet & Hecla (C & H) copper mine. They sang carols and the children queued to see Santa Claus who had modest gifts for each of them. Then, around half past four as the party began to disperse, there was a cry of 'Fire!' and the panic-striken families ran desperately for me stairs.

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1913 Massacre Lyrics

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The Christmas Eve Calumet massacre, 1913

A short history of the biggest mass murder in Michigan history: the massacre of 73 people, mostly the children of striking miners at a Christmas party on Christmas Eve in 1913.

In July 1913, over 7,000 miners struck the C&H Copper Mining Company in Calumet, Michigan.

Strikers' demands included pay raises, an end to child labor, and safer conditions including an end to one-man drill operations, as well as support beams in the mines (which mine owners didn't want because support beams were costly but miners killed in cave-ins “do not cost us anything.")

Six months without work left many miner families with little food for the holidays and no money for presents, so the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners held a Christmas party for the kids. 500 children and 200 adults showed up that day, Christmas Eve 1913. It was held on the second floor of Calumet's Italian Hall; the only way in and out was a very steep stairway.

As darkness fell and people began to go home to their family celebrations, some of the children gathered around the stage as presents were passed out — for many, it would be the only gift they'd receive this year. In the middle of this festive celebration, a man wearing a badge labelled "Citizens Alliance": an anti-strike group organised by employers opened the door at the bottom of the staircase and yelled, “FIRE!"

Chaos ensued. As everybody headed down the stairs to the exit, the door was blocked from the outside, and children and adults were trampled, then suffocated, by the throng of bodies trying to escape the “fire" — which didn't actually exist.

Children on the bottom of the pile suffocated from the weight of the bodies piled atop them and people struggling to escape stepped on those who had fallen. A woman who realized she was going to die lifted her baby over her head. The baby was found alive, clutched in his dead mother’s hands.

In all, 73 people, including 59 children, died, most of them Finnish migrants. The youngest was Rafael Lesar, 2.5 years old. The oldest was Kate Pitteri, 66 years old. Some families lost all of their children, like Frank and Josepa Klarich, who buried their three daughters, Kristina (11), Maria (9), and Katarina (7). Their little crosses are lined up in a row over their graves in a cemetery west of Calumet.

The culprits who yelled into the hall that day to start the tragedy were never identified, but it is widely suspected that it was allies of mine management or the owners who did so to disrupt the miners' party. Nobody was ever prosecuted or even arrested for causing the massacre. It is always thus: Those with money and power control the narrative, silence the truth, and thwart justice.

Partly because a lot of miners left Calumet behind after this tragedy, the strike didn't achieve its demands. However, it was considered a turning point for union strength in Michigan's Copper Country.

In 1941, Woody Guthrie got an idea for a song about the tragedy, which he called “1913 Massacre."

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"1913 Massacre" Take a trip with me in 1913, To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country. I will take you to a place called Italian Hall, Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball. I will take you in a door and up a high stairs, Singing and dancing is heard everywhere, I will let you shake hands with the people you see, And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree. You ask about work and you ask about pay, They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day, Working the copper claims, risking their lives, So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives. There's talking and laughing and songs in the air, And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere, Before you know it you're friends with us all, And you're dancing around and around in the hall. Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights, To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet, To hear all this fun you would not realize, That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside. The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door, One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire," A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing. Keep on with your party, there's no such thing." A few people rushed and it was only a few, "It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you," A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down, But the thugs held the door and he could not get out. And then others followed, a hundred or more, But most everybody remained on the floor, The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke, While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door. Such a terrible sight I never did see, We carried our children back up to their tree, The scabs outside still laughed at their spree, And the children that died there were seventy-three. The piano played a slow funeral tune, And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon, The parents they cried and the miners they moaned, "See what your greed for money has done."

Edited together from When 59 Children Died On Christmas Eve 1913, The World Cried With The Town Of Calumet, Michigan and The Michigan Bar Journal .

• United States
• Western Federation of Miners

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Arlo Guthrie - 1913 Massacre Lyrics

Artist: Arlo Guthrie

Album: Generations of Folk, Vol.2 Protest & Politics

by Woody Guthrie Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen To Calumet, Michigan in the copper country I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall And the miners are having their big Christmas ball I'll take you in a door and up a high stairs Singing and dancing is heard ev'rywhere I'll let you shake hands with the people you see And watch the kids dance 'round the big Christmas tree. There's talking and laughing and songs in the air And the spirit of Christmas is there ev'rywhere Before you know it you're friends with us all And you're dancing around and around in the hall You ask about work and you ask about pay They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day Working their copper claims, risking their lives So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives. A little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet To hear all this fun; you would not realize That the copper boss thug men are milling outside The copper boss thugs stuck their heads in the door One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire" A lady she hollered, "There's no such a thing; Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing." A few people rushed and there's only a few "It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you." A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down But the thugs held the door and he could not get out. And then others followed, about a hundred or more But most everybody remained on the floor The gun thugs, they laughed at their murderous joke And the children were smothered on the stairs by the door. Such a terrible sight I never did see We carried our children back up to their tree The scabs outside still laughed at their spree And the children that died there was seventy-three The piano played a slow funeral tune, And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon The parents, they cried and the men, they moaned, "See what your greed for money has done?"

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