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Scrapbook

ARCHIVE ID: FIC-0000-027-1

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Geraldine Jolly Borozan made this scrapbook in 1937 when she was nineteen years old. Most scrapbooks mark weddings, graduations, and other life events.

Gerry’s album commemorates a massacre.

“My mom kept a good book... All my family was here: my mom, my dad, my uncles. Because they wanted to form a union. Back in them days, they had no rights as workers.”

George Patterson
+
Manuel Garcia
+
Lucious Armstrong
+
George Patterson
+
Capt. Mooney
+
Archie Paterson
+
Lupe Marshall Gallardo
+
Lupe Marshall Gallardo
& The Mexican Popular Front
+
The La Follette Committee
+
Harry Harper
+
Women’s Auxiliary
+
Red-baiting
+

“Someone shouted that there was a badly wounded man behind the police. I saw the man was in a bad way. His right leg was saturated with blood. From the appearance of his face, he was losing blood rapidly. I attempted to make a tourniquet around the main artery of the right thigh. I asked the police to give me something better [for the tourniquet] or to assist me. They only laughed at us and swore at us. I was going away [with the injured man in his car to get medical attention] when a policeman on my left pulled his gun and told me to stop. Another policeman on my right said “We’ll get one of the sons (so-and-sos) anyway.” So I pleaded with them and told them this man was in such condition that if he did not get medical attention at once he would die in a few minutes. So they dragged him out [of the car]. They swore at us again. Four constables got hold of the man, one by each arm, and one by the left knee and one by the tourniquet. As he grabbed the tourniquet, it slipped to the knee and the blood was pouring out...I saw him [the injured man] at the South Chicago Hospital about 50 minutes later, when the police wagon arrived with him. He was dead, had not been attended to, and the tourniquet was still around his knee.”

Condensed from La Follette commission testimony pgs. 4967-68

The Memorial Day
Massacre

A story told through Museum objects saved by Southeast Chicago residents

BEGIN

Captain James L. Mooney

1x

0x

Speed:

 REPLAY FOOTAGE WITH CONTROLS

PRODUCED BY: Christine Walley, Chris Boebel

CREATIVE DIRECTOR & UI/UX DESIGNER: Jeff Soyk

STORY NARRATIVE: Chris Boebel, Christine Walley, Jeff Soyk

PROJECT MANAGERS: Christine Walley, Jeff Soyk

RESEARCH: Christine Walley, Rod Sellers

PROJECT ARCHIVIST: Derek Potts

FRONT END DEVELOPER: Jeff Soyk

OPENING AND CLOSING VIDEOS: Chris Boebel

VIDEO EDITING: Paige Mazurek, Chris Boebel

UI/UX DESIGN SUPPORT: Paige Mazurek

SOUND DESIGN: Billy Wirasnik, Chris Boebel

STUDENT ASSISTANTS: Jocelyn Yu, Anna Vold

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to the Southeast Chicago residents who donated artifacts relating to the Memorial Day Massacre to the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum. Our gratitude in particular to the Borozan family – Gerry Jolly Borazan’s scrapbook forms the heart of this story. Thanks also to Mike Borozan for participating in the opening and closing videos and for donating family photographs. Many items relating to the Memorial Day Massacre were donated by late labor leader Ed Sadlowski, an aficionado of union history and one of the founders of the Southeast Chicago History Project. Bill Bork donated audiotapes of oral histories conducted with George Patterson, Emil Badornac, and Sam Evett for a master’s thesis from 1975 that were key to the storytelling. Museum Director Rod Sellers and his Museology students from Washington High School, located across the street from the Memorial Day Massacre site, conducted oral histories with Gerry Borozan and Mollie West. Rod Sellers also shot video of countless Memorial Day Massacre commemorations sponsored by Local 1033 of USW. Our gratitude to all.

 

SOURCES USED:

Anderson, Paul Y.
1937“Eyewitnesses Describe Killing of Steel Strikers by Police”. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 20, 1937.

Bork, William Hal
1975The Memorial Day “Massacre” of 1937: And its Significance in the Unionization of the Republic Steel Corporation. Master’s Thesis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Brier, Stephen
2001“Labor, Politics, and Race: A Black Worker’s Life.” [A transcript of a 1937 WPA Interview with SWOC Organizer Hank Johnson]. Labor History, pgs. 416-421.

Burley, Dan
1937“Five Men Killed in Bloody Steel Strike”. Chicago Defender, pg. 1, June 5, 1937.

Chicago Daily Tribune
1937“4 Dead, 90 Hurt in Steel Riot: Police Repulse Mob Attack on S. Chicago Mill.” May 31, Pg. 1. 1937“85,000 Strike; Police Act.” May 27th. Pg. 1.

Chicago Defender
1937“Funeral for Slain Steel Worker Held: Man Killed in Memorial Day Massacre Called Martyr at Service.” Chicago Defender, July 3, 1937, Pg. 6.

Dennis, Michael
2010The Memorial Day Massacre and the Movement for Industrial Democracy. New York: Palgrave McMillan.

Flores, John H.
2018The Mexican Revolution in Chicago: Immigration Politics from the Early Twentieth Century to the Cold War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Girdler, Tom M. (with Boyden Sparkes).
1943Bootstraps: The Autobiography of Tom M. Girdler. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Kollros, James
1998Creating a Steel Workers Union in the Calumet Region, 1933-45. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois - Chicago.

LaFollette Commission
1938Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor United States Senate. Parts 14 and 15-D. June 30, July 1st and 2nd, and November 18, 1937. The Chicago Memorial Day Incident. Washington, DC: The Government Printing Office.

Leotta, Louis
1971“Girdler’s Republic” Cithara. Vol. 11. Pgs. 41-66.

Patterson, George
1970Interview with George Patterson conducted by Edward Sadlowski; Dec. 1970-1971. Roosevelt University Archives.

Powers, George
1973The Legend of Joe Cook. Booklet. Donated by Edward Sadlowski to the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum and the Chicago History Museum.

Quirke, Carol
2012Eyes on Labor: News Photography and America’s Working Class. Oxford University Press.

Rosales, Francisco A. and Daniel T. Simons
1975Chicano Steel Workers and Unions in the Midwest, 1919-1945. Aztlan, 6(2):267-275.

Schuyler, George S.
1937“Schuyler Visits Steel Centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania; Finds Race Workers Loyal to Companies.” Pittsburgh Courier, July 24th. 1937“Negro Workers Lead in Great Lakes Steel Strike.” Pittsburgh Courier, July 31st.

Sofchalk, Donald
1965“The Chicago Memorial Day Incident.” Labor History, Vol 6, Winter. Pgs. 3-43.

White, Ahmed
2016The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, The CIO and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America. Berkeley: University of California Press.