Fighting to Remember: Race, Gender, and Patriotism in Memories of American Labor Conflicts, 1886-1919

“Fighting To Remember” traces the development of pro- and anti-labor memories between 1886 and 1919. It looks at how business interests and the state acted together to shape recollections of labor conflicts in ways that denigrated workers by describing union activity as un-American and feminine. This dissertation also examines the organized workers and their supporters who constructed their own histories of these events. These pro-labor commemorations criticized business owners and the state for acting in a manner antithetical to the founding principles of the United States. Starting with the Haymarket Affair and moving forward to the Homestead Strike, the Colorado Labor Wars, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and finally the Centralia Massacre, this dissertation traces how the state built its capacity to create and influence memory construction throughout the United States. This work examines the individuals and organizations involved in the creation of these memories, showing how personal experiences and beliefs can influence the formation of collective remembrances. It shows that understandings of gender, race, and patriotism played outsized roles in the histories of these labor conflicts. The dissertation provides one of the first historical analyses of how conceptions of gender performance, immigration status, and labor politics played a role in the creation of collective memories in the post-Reconstruction, pre-World War I period in the United States.