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 1998 on Hard Travelin', The Asch Recordings, Vol.3 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.
Throughout the 1940s, Guthrie recorded hundreds of discs for Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways Records. One was “1913 Massacre”. According to Pete Seeger, Guthrie was inspired to write the song after reading about the Italian Hall disaster in We Are Many (1940), the autobiography of Ella Reeve Bloor, also known as Mother Bloor, a labor activist whose granddaughter was married to Hollywood actor and activist Will Geer who performed with Guthrie in the 1930s. Guthrie's notes indicate that he got the idea for the song "from the life of Mother Bloor", an eyewitness to the events at Italian Hall on Christmas Eve, 1913.
A socialist and labor organizer from the East Coast, Bloor was in Calumet working on the miners' behalf with the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners. She was assisted by Annie Clemenc, also known as "Big Annie of Calumet" – the "lady" in Guthrie's song who hollers "'there's no such a thing! / Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing.'" Bloor tells the story of the Calumet strike and the Italian Hall disaster in the first half of a chapter called "Massacre of the Innocents." She devotes the second half of the chapter to events in Ludlow, Colorado in 1914, the subject of another Guthrie song — "Ludlow Massacre."
Guthrie's song echoes the language of Bloor's account in many places. The historian Arthur W. Thurner has found similar accounts in English and Finnish-language newspapers from the period; these accounts, he says, probably originated with Clemenc. (Many Finnish miners settled and worked in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, including Calumet.)
There are conflicting stories about what happened that Christmas Eve and who yelled "fire" in Italian Hall. These conflicts may never be resolved. They are, according to Thurner, evidence of a "war between capital and labor" in the Copper Country in 1913. This war included a dispute about what transpired that Christmas Eve in Italian Hall.
The debate over what the event means (or should mean) is ongoing. Guthrie's song counts as one of the more powerful —and certainly one of the best-known – interpretations of the tragedy. While "1913 Massacre" never became a folk standard, the song has been recorded and performed by many artists, including Guthrie's son Arlo; Ramblin' Jack Elliot; Scottish folksinger Alex Campbell; and Bob Dylan.
Dylan performed "1913 Massacre" at Carnegie Chapter Hall in 1961. Dylan set his tribute to Guthrie —"Song To Woody" released in early 1962 — to the tune of "1913 Massacre."
The song revolves around a tragedy that took place on the evening of December 24, 1913, in Calumet's Italian Hall when more than five hundred striking miners and their families gathered for a Christmas party. The hall was on the second story and was reached by climbing a steep set of stairs. The only other exit was a poorly marked fire escape which could be reached by climbing out the windows.
The trouble began when someone yelled "fire!". Even though there was no fire, people panicked and rushed toward the steep stairway which led to the street entrance. Seventy-three people were trampled to death, including fifty-nine children.
To download the easy alphanotes and chords sheet music, look here. Enjoy!
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."
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