Michael Schwab (August 9, 1853 – June 29, 1898) was a German-American labor organizer and one of the defendants in the
Haymarket Square incident.
Biography
Early years
Michael Schwab was born in
Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen is a German spa town in the Bavarian region of Lower Franconia and seat of the district Bad Kissingen. Situated to the south of the Rhön Mountains on the Franconian Saale river, it is one of the health resorts, which be ...
,
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...
in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
in 1853. He was a
bookbinder
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...
by trade. Schwab emigrated to the United States in 1879 and lived variously in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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,
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
and the Western U.S. before settling permanently in Chicago in 1881.
Schwab was married to the sister of Rudolph Schnaubelt (1863-1901), a Chicago anarchist believed by many to have actually thrown the bomb at Haymarket.
["M. Schwab, the Anarchist, Passes Away," ''Chicago Dispatch,'' June 29, 1898, unspecified page. Copy preserved in ''The Papers of Eugene V. Debs, 1834-1945'' microfilm edition, reel 9.] Together the couple had three children.
Activism
Schwab became an activist even before emigrating to the United States, having written articles for several radical German newspapers. He joined the German Social Democratic Party in 1872. In the U.S., he became involved in the workers' rights movement, first joining the
Socialist Labor Party
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 ...
and later joining the International Working Persons Association and helping to form North-Side Group faction of that organization. He began writing and eventually became co-editor of the
Arbeiter-Zeitung, an anarchist newspaper for German immigrant workers. He was very active in the 8-hour day movement.
Haymarket
On the night of May 4, 1886, Schwab left the office of Arbeiter-Zeitung, and stopped at the Haymarket meeting to look for fellow editor, August Spies. Not finding him, Schwab spoke briefly with his brother-in-law, Rudolph Schnaubelt, who was later accused of being the bombthrower. Schwab contended that he was at the Haymarket for no more than five minutes. He left there to speak at a meeting of workers at the Deering Reaper Works at the corner of Fullerton and Clybourn streets. This is where he remained throughout the bombing and left there to go straight home.
Schwab was arrested with the other six Haymarket rioters, while
Albert Parsons
Albert Richard Parsons (June 20, 1848 – November 11, 1887) was a pioneering American socialist and later anarchist newspaper editor, orator, and labor activist. As a teenager, he served in the military force of the Confederate States of Americ ...
turned himself in. In court, he was convicted along with his co-defendants and sentenced to death, while
Oscar Neebe
Oscar William Neebe I (July 12, 1850 – April 22, 1916) was an anarchist, labor activist and one of the defendants in the Haymarket bombing trial, and one of the eight activist remembered on May 1, International Workers' Day.
Early life
He ...
was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Amnesty and later years
Schwab wrote to Illinois governor
Richard James Oglesby
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...
for lenience and on November 10, 1887, Oglesby commuted his sentence, along with that of
Samuel Fielden
Samuel "Sam" Fielden (February 25, 1847 – February 7, 1922) was an English-born American Methodist pastor, socialist, anarchist and labor activist who was one of eight convicted in the 1886 Haymarket bombing.
Biography Early life
Samu ...
, to life imprisonment. He served six years at
Joliet Penitentiary before being pardoned with the other two by Illinois Governor
John Peter Altgeld
John Peter Altgeld (December 30, 1847 – March 12, 1902) was an American politician and the 20th Governor of Illinois, serving from 1893 until 1897. He was the first Democrat to govern that state since the 1850s. A leading figure of the Progr ...
on June 26, 1893. After his release, he continued to write for the ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'' and opened a shoe store from which he also sold books on labor rights, but his health was poor since leaving prison and the store failed.
During his last years Schwab abandoned anarchist doctrine and embraced international socialism, speaking and writing in opposition to the notion of revolution by force.
Death and legacy
Schwab was troubled by "intestinal and pulmonary troubles" during his last several years, for which he was hospitalized at the Alexian Brothers' Hospital in Chicago for the same on November 12, 1897.
He remained hospitalized for the last seven months of his life, undergoing an operation in the middle of May 1898 in a vain effort to reverse his fate.
Schwab expired from his chronic internal ailment at 3:30 am on the morning of June 29, 1898.
He was 44 years old at the time of his death.
Arrangements for Schwab's funeral were handled by the Social Turnverein of Chicago, which announced plans for the cremation of Schwab's body immediately after his death at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.
Schwab was cremated the morning of July 6, with his ashes turned over to his widow for disposition at her pleasure.
["M. Schwab's Body Burned: Ashes of Dead Socialist Leader Will be Disposed of By His Wife: Under No Circumstances Will They Be Buried at Waldheim Cemetery," ''Chicago Dispatch,'' July 6, 1898, unspecified page. Copy preserved in ''The Papers of Eugene V. Debs, 1834-1945'' microfilm edition, reel 9.]
A memorial to Schwab was erected at
Waldheim Cemetery
Forest Home Cemetery is at 863 S. DesPlaines Ave, Forest Park, Illinois, adjacent to the Eisenhower Expressway, straddling the Des Plaines River in Cook County, just west of Chicago. The cemetery traces its history to two adjacent cemeteries, G ...
in Forest Park, Illinois, where it stands along the burial spots of other Haymarket martyrs at the ''
Haymarket Martyrs' Monument
The ''Haymarket Martyrs' Monument'' is a funeral monument and sculpture located at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Dedicated in 1893, it commemorates the defendants involved in labor unrest who were blamed, conv ...
''.
Footnotes
Works
''The Accused the Accusers: The Famous Speeches of the Chicago Anarchists in Court: On October 7th, 8th, and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois.''Chicago: Socialistic Publishing Society, n.d.
886
__NOTOC__
Year 886 ( DCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* March – A wide-ranging conspiracy against Emperor Basil I, led by John Kourkouas, is uncovered.
* ...
Further reading
Testimony of Michael Schwab Illinois v. August Spies, Trial Transcript, Vol. N, p. 1-17, August 9, 1886.
Meet the Haymarket Defendants
External links
* John P. Altgeld
Chicago Historical Society, www.chicagohs.org/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwab, Michael
1853 births
1898 deaths
People from Bad Kissingen
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
German anarchists
German people convicted of murder
German prisoners sentenced to death
American anarchists
American people convicted of murder
American prisoners sentenced to death
Anarcho-communists
Haymarket affair
Recipients of American gubernatorial pardons
Burials at Forest Home Cemetery, Chicago
People convicted of murder by Illinois
Prisoners sentenced to death by Illinois