We continue to post announcements of Joe Hill-related exhibitions and performances to our Events page and our newsletter as we learn of them. If you are organizing such an event, please post the details as a comment or write us at iwwhlf [at] gmail.com
2025 Labor History Calendar
This year’s calendar features photos from labor struggles spanning the 20th century, from interracial organizing in Hawaii that won a 79-day strike against the plantation owners who dominated the local economy to factory occupations that swept France in 1936, winning shorter hours, higher pay, and the reinstatement of blacklisted unionists.
We remember the 1974 miners strike that put Britain on a three day workweek and toppled the government, and a Chicago teachers union leader who was back on the picket line just weeks after serving a month in jail for defying an anti-strike injunction. We remember the timber workers who organized an interracial union in the South in 1912 and a 1972 strike of workers in New Orleans’ water system. And we look back to the Pekin, Illinois, general strike, where workers in this 1,500-person town shut it down in solidarity with distillery workers attacked by the police and quickly won their demands. There’s only a few dozen copies left; Orders can be placed here.
Remembering Joe Hill’s legacy and labor songs on Labor Day
Earlier this year Marketplace Morning Report featured a piece on the history of labor songs and their role in sustaining strikes and other labor struggles. There is a brief discussion of Joe Hill and excerpts from several labor songs… https://wp.me/p61rM9-AR
Joe Hill Monument in Salt Lake City
108 years after his judicial murder by Utah authorities, the monument was unveiled Nov. 19, 2023, at Sugarhouse Park, site of the crime. The Central Utah Federation of Labor/AFL-CIO said the marker “will stand as a symbol of his enduring spirit and will serve as a reminder of the power of collective action.”
The Case of Joe Hill
The Case of Joe Hill by Philip Foner was reissued in 2022 by International Publishers, with a new Foreword by Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, that discusses developments since the book’s original publication.
James Connolly centenary
May 2016 marked the centenary of the murder of labor and socialist organizer James Connolly. We offer A Full Life: James Connolly The Irish Rebel, a graphic history of his life and legacy, on our products page. Patika Publishing released a Turkish-language edition in September 2022. An Irish edition was released in June 2024.
Gifts for all seasons…
We have a wide array of Joe Hill and labor-oriented material suitable for gifts, including:
A Full Life: James Connolly The Irish Rebel
2025 Solidarity Forever Labor History Calendar
Direct Action Gets the Goods women’s cut T-shirts
Joe Hill centenary T-shirts (S, 3XL only)
Fred Alpi singing Joe Hill and other labor songs in French
The Shelby Bottom Duo singing songs of Joe Hill
Joe Hill’s letters and other writings
Carlos Cortez linocut poster, Joe Hill.
the definitive biography of Joe Hill, by William Adler
The 3rd edition of Joyce Kornbluh’s Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology
and full color Christmas Cards drawn by Joe Hill in his Salt Lake City jail cell
We continue to offer Joe Hill t-shirts (only two sizes remain), a book of Joe Hill’s collected writings, recordings of his songs by Fred Alpi, the Shelby Bottom Duo, Bucky Halker, etc., and to add new Joe Hill events to our calendar (and to notify site subscribers) as we learn of them.
San Pedro Joe Hill Memorial
The only public memorial in the United States to this legendary organizer and songwriter was unveiled in January 2017. (It has since been joined by a new monument in Salt Lake City – see above.) The 8-foot-wide plaque features Hill holding a guitar, with the IWW’s universal label over his head. His gaze is fixed on a sea of San Pedro workers confronted by policemen, their batons raised. ILWU members, Wobblies and others were present for the unveiling. Joe Hill was secretary of the San Pedro dockworkers’ strike committee, and lived there for several years before the blacklist sent him to Utah.
About this website
November 2015 marked the centenary of the judicial murder of IWW organizer and songwriter Joe Hill. This site features information on Joe Hill’s life, a listing of events around the world marking the centenary, the text of all of Joe Hill’s surviving songs (with links to the music and selected performances), and other information. Suggestions for additional material are welcome.
• Chronology of highlights in Joe Hill’s life
• Joe Hill’s poems and songs
• Books, plays and songs about Joe Hill
• A capsule biography of Joe Hill’s life and legacy
• Events commemorating Joe Hill’s life and marking the centenary of his murder
• Publications and other material available for purchase (Watch this space for new recordings, books, and other items)
• Subscribe to our updates for news of the Joe Hill Roadshow, upcoming events, and more. (These can also be found under the Files tab)
Our privacy policy is available in the pull-down menu for this page
Last Updated: december 2024
Privacy Policy
We collect and retain information on visitors to this website only for those who sign up to be forwarded new posts and for those who make purchases from our online store. This information is only used for the purposes of fulfilling those requests and notifying purchasers of new offerings (typically the new edition of our labor history calendar).
21 replies on “Joe Hill Centenary”
Hello , as you already know, ” ApARTe°”-irregular materials of libertarian culture – is working on a book on Joe Hill’s life and murder.
The book on Joe Hill will have about 120/132 pages in black & white and 12 more four-color .
It will be in three languages (Italian , Swedish and English) , as were many flyers IWW .
Its format will be 22x22cm.
Along with the book there’ll be a CD ” Non dimenticherò mai Joe Hill / Never forget Joe Hill / Aldrig Glomma Joe Hill” to which almost one hundred of international artists have taken part.
In addition to this, we’ll insert a booklet of a play by Upton Sinclair, “Singing Jail Birds”.
Here in Italy there’s already great expectation for this book; they talked about this release at the important Premio Tenco in Sanremo 2014.
Rino.
Great way to pay tribute to Joe Hill!
Just a footnote: If you want to translate the English title “Never forget Joe Hill” (the imperative form of the verb) into Swedish it should be
“Glöm aldrig Joe Hill”. The title listed (“Aldrig Glomma Joe Hill”) is not Swedish, either in construction or spelling.
All the best,
Anne-Charlotte Harvey
Swede
I read some of the articles about the Joe Hill Centenary in the recent issues of the Industrial Worker yesterday. Thanks… good journalism and IWW writing there.
I heard that Joe Hill’s ashes were sprinkled in the guitars of IWWs. That IWW musicians lined up with their instruments, guitars, violins, a cello, banged a couple songs out, and then utah sprinkled ashes into the instruments.
Is this true?
Are there more of Joe Hill’s ashes that can be distributed in this way?
Can we recycle dust from instruments that have already been anointed in this way to christen more IWW instruments??? that would be nice.
Thanks! Kenneth Miller
The story was about Bruce “Utah” Phillips. Duncan Phillips, his son, said; His songs and his stories were more or less my inheritance. That, and an old curly-top maple Guild guitar, which still carries some of the activist Joe Hill’s ashes.
Joe Hill’s Last Will – A Codicil
We watch as seasons come and go
But hard times always stay, we know
A hundred years long you’ve been gone
Your song, Joe Hill, still carries on
Looking forward to Joe Hill concert tonight in San Francisco as part of Labor Fest 2015. Also I’ve just written a biography of the Oregon delegate, Marie Equi, who was asked to disperse Joe Hill’s ashes. She was a medical doctor and did not qualify to become a regular IWW member but the local in Portland made her an honorary member. She also lived with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in Portland, OR on and off for nine years. MARIE EQUI: Radical Politics & Outlaw Passions by Michael Helquist, to be released Sept 15, 2015 by Oregon State University Press.
Joe hill is immortal.
Thank you much for doing this!!!
My grandparents were union folk
who greatly admired Joe Hill,
Gene Debs, and Lucy Parsons.
Xxoocheerswoofmeow
from moggie
I was in the audience at the Joe Hill concert last night at the Old Socialist Labor Hall. My ears are still echoing with all the great music. Thanks so much. One suggestion, however: Please try to incorporate some music and commentary about the contemporary class and other struggles like Occupy Wall Street and BlackLivesMatter. (Don’t get caught flatfooted on the latter like Bernie did in Phoenix.) There are still revolutionary socialists and anarchists trying to make history and bring down the System. We are not just historical items for nostalgia!
Thanks for your comment. Wasn’t at the Barre show, but I do know that in Philadelphia there was a dedication (with fairly extensive commentary) of one song to Sandra Bland, and another to Freddie Gray (noting that they had done the same in the Baltimore show the night before). And Charlie King did a song, “Bring Back the 8-Hour Day,” that explicitly connects the current decline in working conditions to the struggles of 100 (and 125) years ago.
Surely “Dump the Bosses Off Your Back,” “Solidarity Forever,” “The Banks Are Made of Marble” (explicitly discussed in terms of recent events in Philly) and “There is Power” (all part of the set list in Philadelphia) speak as much to current conditions as to historical ones.
On September 5, 2015 there will be a party and concert for Joe Hill at Sugar House Park, in Salt lake City. This is the site of the old Utah State Prison, where he was murdered in 1915 by firing squad.
Where exactly in the park will this event take place? It’s a big park. Where do we enter the park from by car to get to the site?
For details on the show, see http://joehill2015.org/joe-hill-centennial-concert/schedule/
Please come to Texas.
Utah Phillips received Joe Hill’s ashes from me when i was the office manager for the Western Montana IWW GMB back in the ’80’s. A couple of pinches of Joe’s remains also reside in my guitar (which also has IWW in mother-of-pearl on the headstock).
Mark, there is also a photo on the Reuther Library site of Utah Phillips at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 1988.
Caption; Utah Phillips receives Joe Hill’s Ashes from Trudy Peterson while Fred Lee watches at the National Archives.
Dr. Marie Equi, a radical lesbian doctor and activist, received Joe Hill’s ashes on behalf of Oregon. She was a close, supportive colleague of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn when the latter was trying to intercede on Hill’s behalf with President Wilson and many others. Equi’s full biography now available for the first time: “MARIE EQUI: Radical Politics & Outlaw Passions,” order through indie bookstores or at familiar online book sources.
Henry,
Utah called me when I was running the Wob office in Missoula to ask if FW Art Nurse could fund his quick trip to D.C from Saratoga Springs NY where he would be playing that weekend. FW Nurse ponied up the cash to fly Phillips to Washington so he could be there for the ceremony.
There will be a Joe Hill Centenary event in Melbourne, Australia, on Thursday 19 Novemer. The venue is the Victorian TradesHall, cnr Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton, commencing at 5.00 pm. We will be screening Bo Widerberg’s long-lost film ‘Joe Hill’ in a newly restored and digitally remastered version produced by the National Library of Sweden. For further information please contact me at t.pitt@live.com.au
Hi Folks,
I’ve just completed a Youtube video to mark 100th anniversary of Joe Hills’s execution at Salt Lake City, next Thursday, November 19th, which you may wish to watch and circulate.
Regards
Barry Cullen
Yes, we are still filling orders and have several copies left. We are shipping calendars three times a week, and there is still time as we write (Friday) for orders to arrive in most of the U.S. by Christmas.