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Fascinating Horror
  • 22/10/2024
"On the 24th of December, 1913, in the town of Calumet in Michigan employees of a copper mining company were enjoying a Christmas party at a community hall..."

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Transcript
00:00On the 24th of December, 1913, in the town of Calumet in Michigan, employees of a copper mining
00:17company were enjoying a Christmas party at a community hall. At some point in proceedings
00:23a loud cry was heard. Fire! The crowd rushed to escape down a single narrow staircase,
00:31but there simply wasn't room for everyone to evacuate at once.
00:35In the panic and confusion which followed, many of those in attendance would lose their lives.
00:421913 was a tense year for the residents of Calumet. Many of them worked for the Calumet
00:48and Heckler Mining Company, a huge and very successful firm which specialized in the
00:53extraction and processing of copper ore from mines in the copper-rich Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
01:00In some ways the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company was a very good employer. It provided
01:06housing and other facilities for its workers, including libraries, bathhouses, and leisure
01:12facilities such as bowling alleys and clubhouses. It started a voluntary fund to take care of ill
01:18and injured workers, and matched employee contributions to this fund... something that
01:23was almost unheard of at the time. Not only this, but it poured money into the local economy,
01:30funding the construction of schools and churches for the benefit of the entire community.
01:36This was all a good investment for the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company.
01:40By taking care of their workers to a standard much higher than any other mining company
01:45they easily attracted the best workers, and these workers remained incredibly loyal to the company.
01:52At the same time, though, not everyone was happy with this arrangement.
01:56By providing everything for its employees the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company
02:00exercised a massive degree of control over their lives. Since the mining company controlled the
02:06whole town, bad behavior such as drunkenness or brawling could cost a worker their job,
02:12even when it happened outside of working hours. Losing their job would also mean losing their home,
02:18their church, and their children's schooling. Not an ideal arrangement. Compounding this was the fact
02:25that the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company, like every other mining company, was resistant to the
02:31idea of a minimum wage and, by 1913, had begun pushing some of its workers to work alone in
02:38dangerous conditions. Attitudes to the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company among the workers were
02:45mixed, and so when the Western Federation of Miners, a union of mine workers, called for a strike in
02:51July of 1913 it divided the town. Some workers were strongly in favor of a strike, while others
02:59very much wanted to go back to work. After some time the National Guard was brought in. Although
03:06the strike was allowed to continue, those who wanted to work were able to do so under their
03:11protection. It wasn't an ideal solution, and tensions were certainly high, but it allowed
03:18the mine to continue functioning. For five long months the strike dragged on. By the time Christmas
03:26rolled around many of the strikers were hurting. With no money coming in they couldn't afford to
03:31buy their children Christmas presents and were badly in need of a morale boost. To provide just
03:38that the Western Federation of Miners booked out the Italian Hall in Calumet and laid on an evening
03:44of food, drink and entertainment for the striking workers. The Italian Hall was a sort of community
03:51center for the town of Calumet. This two-story structure had a space for shops and a saloon
03:57on the ground floor, and a large meeting hall on the top floor. It was in this large hall that the
04:03party would take place, with more than 600 people, many of them children, congregating there over the
04:09course of the evening. Even to this day nobody knows who shouted the word fire, but at some
04:17point in the night this cry was heard loud and clear. It cut through the music and the chatter,
04:23causing an instant panic. And no wonder. The Iroquois Theatre fire and its horrifying death toll
04:30were still fresh in the memories of many of those in attendance. Fearful of a similar tragedy guests
04:37surged towards the only easily accessible exit... a narrow staircase that led down to the street
04:44outside. Had they been more familiar with the building they might have escaped using another
04:49route. There was an additional fire exit, but it wasn't clearly signposted and had to be accessed
04:56through the kitchen. Several of the windows were also fitted with ladders to allow people to escape
05:02in an emergency, but these were of little use. The panicking partygoers simply didn't know the ladders
05:09were there. Some people survived by jumping from the windows, or by staying put in the hall despite
05:16the panic surrounding them. These were the lucky ones. Those who tried to escape via the main
05:21staircase were caught almost instantly in a deadly human crush. Passers-by outside were drawn by the
05:29shouts and screams of those trapped on the staircase, and arrived to find it jammed floor to
05:34ceiling with bodies, many of them children. Though they pulled out anyone they could, many were already
05:41beyond rescue. By the time it was realized that there was no fire dozens had been crushed and
05:47suffocated. The panic subsided in mere minutes, but the damage was already done. The dead were dragged
05:56out of the stairwell one by one and taken to the town hall where they were lined up for identification.
06:03Every physician in town was brought to the scene to do the best they could to help the injured.
06:09In total 73 people lost their lives, 59 of them children. It was one of the worst mining-related
06:17disasters ever to hit the region, and it happened above ground, mainly affecting the wives and
06:23children of mine workers. In the aftermath of the disaster tensions were extremely high.
06:30The question arose who was to blame? For days and weeks rumors circulated. Some people thought that
06:39a drunk from the saloon below the hall was to blame, while many others were adamant that they
06:45had seen the man who shouted fire and that he had been wearing an anti-union pin. Suspicion fell on
06:52the Kalymet and Hekla mining company itself, but also on a separate anti-union body known as the
06:58Citizens' Alliance. So great was the ill feeling towards the Citizens' Alliance, in fact, that the
07:05relatives of victims turned down $25,000 in aid raised by the organization, and the leader of the
07:13Western Federation of Miners openly accused them of being responsible for causing the disaster.
07:20In a development that highlights just how inflamed tensions were, this resulted in members of the
07:25Citizens' Alliance shooting the leader of the Western Federation of Miners and forcing him,
07:30wounded and bleeding, onto a train out of the state. Elsewhere there was an ongoing furore,
07:37as newspapers printed headlines calling the deaths murders. Accusations flew back and forth,
07:44with different papers printing wildly different stories and differing accounts of events.
07:50Ultimately it was never found out who was responsible for that first deadly shout of fire.
07:56While most of those involved were convinced that it was related to the strike, there is also a
08:01small possibility that it was a genuine error, that someone at the gathering really thought there was
08:06a fire. That aside, it may have been intended as an ill-advised joke or a way of causing some minor
08:14disruption. The reason behind this senseless tragedy has been lost to history. In the shadow
08:22of such an enormous disaster the strike didn't last much longer. In April of 1914 it came to an
08:28end and the striking workers returned to the mine, with many of them having to tear up their Western
08:34Federation of Miners membership cards in front of mine bosses before they were allowed to do so.
08:39Although the strike didn't succeed it also wasn't a complete loss, as it did pave the way for more
08:46successful unionization in the future. The Italian Hall remained standing, although it fell into
08:52disrepair after some time and was eventually demolished in 1984. One feature was retained,
09:00the doorway through which so many had tried to escape. It now forms part of a small park,
09:06a quiet and contemplative place which houses a memorial marked with the names of those who died.
09:13The Italian Hall disaster is one of several incidents which illustrate a principle that
09:18is commonly used even today, the idea that free speech does not extend to shouting fire in a
09:24crowded theatre. Whatever the intention of the person who did just this in December of 1913,
09:31the Italian Hall disaster is a vivid illustration of just how dangerous a panic can be.
10:01you

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