Site of the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster

A memorial park marks the site of a famous, horrible, and needless tragedy. At the Italian social hall's 1913 Christmas party, during the fifth month of the bitter copper mining strike, someone apparently yelled, "Fire!" ? People rushed down the stairs, ignoring shouts that there was no fire. 73 died, mostly children, trampled and smothered, in a stairwell whose doors opened inward and were said to be locked shut.
1913 Massacre, Woody Guthrie's moving song, blamed mining bosses for the unsolved deed - a logical conclusion, though the perpetrators were never found. The subject of Italian Hall is riveting, especially to people passionate about labor history. One was the late Tom Katona, who recently died of a stroke at the age of 49. His site is www.angelfire.com/mi2/1913 . Another is photographer Eric Munch, whose studio (906-337-5084) is a few blocks away at 57467 Tenth Street. Eric took a series of evocative black-and-white photos of Italian Hall after it had been vacated awaiting demolition.

Still others moved to action by the song and the Italian Hall story are New York filmmakers Louis Galdiere and Ken Ross. They have been making a film of the song and the story for over five years. Their outstanding website, including photos, song lyrics, and audio of Woody Guthrie singing the song, is at www.1913massacre.com. Their aim is to use archival photos and lots of interviews (with Calumet people and with many others, including singers like Odetta, Ani DiFranco, Arlo Guthrie, and Pete Seeger) to create an experimental film about hope and survival, about the redemptive power of music, and about an American town's struggle with its past.?

Is Calumet actually struggling with this part of its past? It seems rather that, as the strike recedes into the simplified past, public opinion overwhelmingly takes the miners' side of what was a complex situation. The filmmakers' 1913 Massacre web site will take you to a lot of places well worth exploring - from the Iron Range of Minnesota to the filmmaking world of the Lower East Side of New York. The very accessible filmmakers would love some help and money, too. A recent grant from the Puffin Foundation has enabled them to research the music of the Upper Peninsula in 1913.

The Italian Hall Disaster, together with the widely published photographs of dead girls looking like angels in the temporary morgue in the village hall, created widespread sympathy for the victims' families at every level of Copper Country society. Previously the local press had successfully branded strikers as socialist agitators. The Mining Gazette was then obviously a mouthpiece for mining officials and copper interests.

Historian Larry Malloy has written a book focussing on the downstairs doors and the architecture and immediate events involved with the disaster. The doors themselves can be seen at Coppertown mining museum here in Calumet. An opera about the Italian Hall tragedy, "Children of the Keweenaw," premiered in the Calumet Theatre adjoining the ballroom/morgue.

Italian Hall was used as a gathering place for decades after 1913. Eventually it fell empty, like so many other Calumet buildings. It was demolished in 1984, over much local opposition. Local people will often relate the eerie scene of how the building refused to succumb quickly to the wrecking ball. Ask Bill about it across the street at Bill's Electrical Supplies. He was there.

On the west side of downtown at Seventh between Elm and Pine/M-203. The monument is the arched sandstone doorway set back from the sidewalk. The building's site is now a lawn.

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