126th Anniversary of the Bay View Tragedy

05/03/2012

126th Anniversary of the Bay View Tragedy

This is a cross post from the Wisconsin Labor History Society

Join us to honor the deaths of 8-hour day marchers at the Bayview Tragedy Reenactment. This tragedy marks Wisconsin’s most historic labor incident.

When: 3:00 p.m., Sunday, May 6

Where: Bay View Rolling Mills State Historical marker site at S. Superior St. and E. Russell Ave.

The annual Commemoration of the Bay View Tragedy is to be held at 3 p.m., Sunday, May 6, 2012 at the Bay View Rolling Mills State Historical marker site at S. Superior St. and E. Russell Ave., on Milwaukee’s lakefront. It commemorates the tragedy of May 5, 1886 when the State Militia shot into some 1,500 workers marching in an 8-hour-day rally and killed seven in front of the old Bay View Rolling Mills, then Milwaukee’s largest manufacturing plant.

A free shuttle bus to the event will be available from 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm at the Holt Avenue Park & Ride - exit 314A – just north of the airport.

This year’s free outdoor ceremony will be followed up with a discussion forum beginning at about 4 p.m. led by Milwaukee Historian John Gurda, who will open the session with remarks and then look for comments from a panel of historians and worker activists, as well as the audience. The forum will be held at the Club Garibaldi, 2501 S. Superior St.

The outdoor event — similar to the ceremonies that have been held annually for the last 26 years — will feature an address by Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale.

The program will also include a re-enactment of the May 5, 1886 event, featuring actors reading from speeches of the period, accompanied by players of the Milwaukee Public Theatre dressed in period costumes, supported by larger-than-life-sized puppets.

Larry Penn, folksinger and retired Teamster, will perform several songs, including his own, “Ghosts of Bay View,” and “Solidarity Forever.”

Members of the family of the late Mayor Frank P. Zeidler will participate in the ceremony, which includes the placing of a wreath honoring the workers who were killed. Zeidler, Milwaukee mayor from 1948 to 1960, died at age 93 in 2006 and was a regular speaker at the event.

Since 1986, members of the Wisconsin Labor History Society, the Bay View Historical Society and others have been holding this celebration to memorialize the tragedy, which was Wisconsin’s most dramatic labor event, and was important in the struggle of workers and their unions to gain decent wages, hours and conditions.

More than 400 persons attended last year’s ceremony, including many public officials.

The event is sponsored by the Wisconsin Labor History Society and this year is funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Posted at 11:34 AM | Permalink

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