Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, well, we're really fudging this day on this one because today what you're listening to this is December 19th, but the story we're talking about is from Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1913, at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan. Chaos erupted when someone yelled fire during a crowded holiday party.

In the ensuing stampede, some 73 people, 59 of them children died.

Calumet was a company town, a mining town, and the Italian Hall disaster quickly

entered the lore of labor history in this country as the circumstances

surrounding the tragedy were tied up in labor disputes, strikes, and the

exploitation of mostly immigrant workers in Michigan's copper country. So here to discuss the Italian

Hall disaster of 1913 are as always Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly

Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello Jody. Hey there. And our guest for this

episode is Eric Loomis, Labor Historian, Associate Professor of History at the

University of Rhode Island, and his most recent book is A History of America in 10 Strikes.

Eric, I'm a big fan of your work.

We've been trying to find an excuse to have you on the show,

so thank you for doing this.

Well, thank you all for having me.

Yeah.

So I learned about this, as I think a lot of people did maybe because there's a Woody Guthrie song that basically recounts this beat by beat and

Kelly and Nicki will tell you that if Woody wrote a song about it eventually I will find a reason to word on this show.

We're just going through the whole back catalog. But you know I think bringing out that

so and listeners we'll play we'll play you that song an entire day at the end of this episode.

But I think bringing up that song is interesting because when you hear you know oh there's a

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