Summary Information
Albert Richard Parsons Papers
1876-1893
- Parsons, Albert Richard, 1848-1887
U.S. Mss 15A Box 1; Micro 523
0.2 cubic feet (4 folders in black box) and 1 reel of microfilm (35 mm)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers of Albert Richard Parsons, a Chicago anarchist executed after the 1886 Haymarket bombing; including correspondence concerning his imprisonment and execution; notes he took during his trial; and clippings and broadsides concerning the trial, speaking tours of Mrs. Lucy (Gonzales) Parsons, the International Working People's Association, and the 8-hour day movement in Chicago.
Housed with Anarchists' Club of Boston, Massachusetts records and Economy as viewed by an anarchist manuscript by C.L. James.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us00015a ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Albert R. Parsons, an anarchist and militant labor advocate, was one of four men executed following the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago. Parsons was born in Montgomery, Alabama, into a family of colonial ancestry and, after both parents died, was raised by an older brother in Texas. At age eleven he was apprenticed to a printer, but his indenture was interrupted by military service for the Confederacy in the Civil War. After the war Parsons held positions with several newspapers and with the federal government's Internal Revenue Bureau. In 1871 he married Lucy E. Gonzalez. They were the parents of two children, Albert R. Jr. and Lulu Eda Parsons.
Settling in Chicago in 1873, Parsons resumed the printing trade and joined the Typographical Union. His first serious interest in radical movements stemmed from efforts to reform Chicago's Relief and Aid Society. The Society was responsible for administering relief programs connected with the great Chicago fire, but radical and working people's groups charged that it provided money for speculators while denying aid to poor people. After this experience, Parsons and his wife both became increasingly active in labor and radical circles. He joined the Social Democratic Party of America in 1875, the Knights of Labor in 1876, and in 1877 lost his job with the Chicago Times because of activities during the railway strike. During this period he also ran for several public offices on the ticket of the Workingmen's Party of the United States. By 1883 Parsons' dissatisfaction with political action led him to adopt anarchism. In 1884 he became editor of the Alarm, the English language organ of the radical-socialist International Working People's Association.
Albert Parsons was one of the speakers at the May 4, 1886 rally in Chicago's Haymarket Square. The rally grew out of the eight-hour day movement and was called specifically to protest the shooting of several strikers by police outside the McCormick Harvester factory on May 3. Although the bomb thrower was never identified, Parsons and nine others, including well-known radicals and other speakers at the rally, were charged with the murder of a policeman who died in the blast. During the highly publicized trial which followed, Lucy Parsons undertook extended speaking tours to build support and raise money for the defendants. The verdict, however, was guilty, and after an unsuccessful appeal and attempts to gain a pardon from the governor, Parsons and three others were hanged on November 11, 1887.
Additional biographical information can be found in the Dictionary of American Biography, Life of Albert R. Parsons by Lucy Parsons (Chicago, 1889), and Labor Agitator by Alan Calmer (New York, 1937).
Scope and Content Note
The Parsons papers span the years 1876-1893 and include correspondence, notes taken by Parsons during his trial, and a large volume of clippings and broadsides. Nearly all of the documents fall within the period 1885-1889. Due to physical deterioration, the original clippings were destroyed after microfilming. Remaining in the paper records is the original correspondence and the typescript of the notes taken by Parsons during his trial.
The correspondence is made up primarily of letters to Mrs. Parsons during her husband's imprisonment and shortly after his execution, and telegrams between Parsons and his wife while she was touring other parts of the country.
Throughout the trial Parsons kept notes recording his impressions of actions by the prosecution, the defense, and the judge. Included in this collection is a partial typed copy of these notes covering primarily the period of jury selection. The original and complete notebook was lost in 1965.
The clippings and broadsides chiefly concern the Haymarket rally, trial, and various speaking tours of Mrs. Parsons. Some of the earlier clippings also include information on the International Working People's Association, and the eight-hour day movement in Chicago. They are arranged in a scrapbook kept by the Parsons from December 9, 1886 through August 1887 and several folders of loose clippings. Many of the loose clippings were originally in a second scrapbook, which was cut apart and photocopied in 1964 due to physical deterioration. The loose clippings are now arranged chronologically with a large group of undated clippings at the end.
Pamphlets from the collection have been sent to the Historical Society Library and most broadsides to Iconography (now Visual Materials Collections in WHS Archives).
Administrative/Restriction Information
Acquired from Mrs. Lucy Parsons by the American Bureau for Industrial Research.
Processed by Harry Miller, February 1974.
Contents List
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Micro 523/U.S. Mss 15A
Reel
1
Box/Folder
1/1
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Correspondence, 1886-1889 and undated
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Reel
1
Box/Folder
1/2
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Notes taken by Parsons during the Haymarket Trial, 1886
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Reel
1
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Scrapbook, 1886 December 9-1887 August
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Reel
1
Box/Folder
1/3-4
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Clippings and broadsides, 1876, 1883-1889, 1893
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