Molly Maguires
United States 1860-1879
Synopsis
Every movement has its legends, and none is more compelling or controversial in the American labor movement than the group of rough, preliterate Irish immigrants known as the Molly Maguires. Nineteen members of the group were hanged in all—10 of them on the "Day of the Rope," 21 June 1877. Their deeds and even their very existence have become the stuff of legend. The stories of the Molly Maguires merge unionism; acts of individual resistance and vengeance; cultural, political and religious organization; union-busting; and ethnic frictions against the desolate background of the Pennsylvania mining camps to create a complex and dramatic narrative that provokes controversy to the present day.
Timeline
- 1861: Within weeks of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, the U.S. Civil War begins with the shelling of Fort Sumter. Six states secede from the Union, joining South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America (later joined by four other states) and electing Jefferson Davis as president. The first major battle of the war, at Bull Run or Manassas in Virginia, is a Confederate victory.
- 1862: Victor Hugo's Les Misérables depicts injustices in French society, and Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons introduces the term nihilism.
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