CHICAGO METRO HISTORY FAIR

2017 SUMMARY STATEMENT FORM

Student name(s) Anthony Valenzo, Josiah Morales, Meximatzin Talavera
Title
The Haymarket riot

1. THESIS STATEMENT
Present the project s argument or interpretation in two sentences. If you are usi
ng the NHD theme, you might want to make it evident in your thesis statement.
The haymarket riot of Chicago in 1886 was one of the most powerful, yet deadly e
vents in Chicago history.
Workers from Chicago took a stand against long hour working conditions by striki
ng in order to be satisfied with their working conditions and how many hours the
y worked for.
2. SUMMARY OF PROJECT
Briefly explain your project and its conclusion. Include: How and why did chan
ge happen and what was the impact? Why is it historically significant? What hi
storical meaning or importance can we learn from your findings?
The point of our project is to explain how and why the change happened.
It happened by labor workers having an eight hour movement. They protest to redu
ce is because they had to work a long time. They had a strike so they can get 7-
9 hours of work instead of 10-12 hours of work. It impacted the topic because no
w we work shorter times and have better working conditions. It does affect our l
ives because now we don't work long restless hours. This was an important part o
f history. This is still a mysterious part of history because there are some un
answered questions asked from the haymarket that are not 100% clear like: who ha
d threw the bomb at the police?
3. Required for projects using the National History Day theme only.
Explain how this project integrates the NHD theme Taking a Stand in [Ch
icago/IL] History into its argument.
The way the project integrates with the NHD theme, Taking a stand happened becau
se the laws were not stable like they are now.In 1886, the labor laws of Chicago
were not very stable, labor workers had done labor from 10-12 hours.
The working conditions of labor workers wasn t much better as well!
When people are working lots of time and not in school they don't learn as much.
This condition could have changed Chicago very much making it possible to have a
very different city or might of take longer to change the labor working conditi
ons and hours. And the labor working laws of Chicago caused laborers to Take a sta
nd.
This happened when laborers made multiple strikes/protests for better working ri
ghts but specifically looking at the May 3, 1886 strike in Chicago.Labor workers
striked at 7:30 o clock when posters explaining to working men and women to meet
together to get better working rights and what police did late afternoon, yester
day.They wanted an 8 hour work day as well as better working conditions.This par
t explains how they took a stand on better working rights in Chicago, and the pr
oject we have connects to the NHD theme, taking a stand in Chicago history. Taki
ng a stand means to do an action that may change, add, or vanish a law or right
which is basically what laborers are doing.
The impact of this process didn t take much to have working conditions im
proved.
Also, the 8-hour movement succeeded as well. Although that, the impact they had
before that was bloody, when police came to shut down the peaceful strike. Altho
ugh that an unknown person threw a bomb at the stage starting a riot.
Some Police were not happy about this. After the riot, 8 Anarchist were sent to
court and were taken to prison and 4 anarchist were executed, although that, po
lice couldn t find enough evidence to support that the 8 anarchists caused the bom
b.
4. PROCESS
A. What historical question did you start off with and how did it change once you
began doing your research?
We first started with 1 level questions such as, Who were the main p
eople who were in the riot. This was a question that was not very hard to answer,
(you could automatically have an answer this question by searching it on google
). Lv 1 questions don t take that long to answer so it might be a whole lot specif
ic in fact, it might not succeed when you think about it. After that we started
doing level 2 questions. There was only 1 right answer. Other than that lv 1 and
lv 2 questions don t have many differences, that is that lv 2 questions take more
time to take research but not as much as level 3 questions. We then went to lev
el 3 questions. An example of a level 3 question we made was, What were the causes
and effects of the haymarket riot?
When we were doing level 3 questions, we noticed that they are types
of questions that took time to answer and could have multiple answers. Finally,
we finished doing our level 4 question which was perfect We came up with the que
stion, How did the haymarket riot change labor working conditions, and hours in Ch
icago? The level 4 question may take lots of time to answer which your answer cou
ld be argued. Also it seems so that there can be multiple answer to this questio
n as well.
B. What kinds of sources did you use as evidence to develop your argument (for e
xample, letters, photographs,
government documents, interviews, etc.)?
We used government documents, photographs, posters, and many secondary sources f
or our argument. For example for photographs, a photograph of a statue honoring
police at the riot. Another example being a poster. This poster gave attention to
working men to come to an important meeting to the McCormick reaper plan. The Fi
nal example of a primary source we had was the government document (technically)
explaining information of the haymarket riot that the document explained what
people saw. As a result, we have not many evidence that are primary sources but
we have pictures which are good enough like the poster explaining laborers
C. Select one piece of evidence that you used and explain how it influenced your
argument.
A piece of evidence that we used was, on the source, Haymarket Riot and May Day
by Christopher Thale it explained turally, At the McCormick reaper plant, a long-s
immering strike erupted in violence in May 3, and police fired at strikers, kill
ing at least 2. This quote of the we found had influenced the argument we had. Th
is is because it explains that the way the strike changed the working conditions
and hours of labor workers but how did it change? It s safe to say that it s proces
s was turning threatening! The reason of this is briefly explained on the first
sentence. Also there is more to this to this quote because something caused the
strike/protest to turn wild that made police fire at strikers.
D. List libraries (other than school), museums, and other institutions that you
visited to do your research.
Chicago History Museum