Today in Chicago History: ‘May Day' born after workers take to the streets to demand an eight-hour workday

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01-05-2025

Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on May 1, according to the Tribune's archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 90 degrees (1951)
Low temperature: 30 degrees (1943)
Precipitation: 2.35 inches (1873)
Snowfall: 1.6 inches (1940)
Why May Day is an international workers' holiday — and how it began in Chicago
1867: Illinois quickly passed an eight-hour workday law, which went into effect on this date. Workers thought the vague language of the law could be enforced, and employers thought otherwise. Thousands of workers marched through Chicago to support the eight-hour workday, but a failed general strike proved the employers right.
Flashback: Chicago's place at the forefront of labor history
1886: Three days before the Haymarket Affair — in which a bomb was thrown during a Chicago labor rally that resulted in the death of eight police officers and at least four civilians — tens of thousands marched on Michigan Avenue in a campaign to reduce the customary 10- to 12-hour workday to eight hours.
Though the U.S. honors workers in September — with Labor Day, which also has Chicago roots — the May 1886 events are commemorated in Chicago by a memorial on Desplaines Street, north of Randolph Street: A bronze statue of a wagon that served as a speakers' platform during the labor meeting.
1893: The World's Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago. Beating out New York to host the spectacular world's fair was a miracle considering just 22 years earlier the city was in shambles following the Great Chicago Fire.
The Ferris wheel, Cracker Jack and zippers were new-fangled things introduced to the more than 20 million attendees before the fair closed five months later.
1897: Louisa Luetgert, wife of Adolf Luetgert, owner of the A.L. Luetgert Sausage & Packing Co., disappeared. Luetgert was convicted of her slaying on Feb. 9, 1898, and dissolving her body in a vat of lye and sentenced to life in prison.
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, center, walks unrecognized by people in Chicago in 1961. Brooks lived on the South Side for most of her life. (Chicago Tribune archive) Gwendolyn Brooks writes at a table next to her books, circa 1961. (Robert MacKay/Chicago Tribune) Poet Gwendolyn Brooks at event at Columbia College on June 17, 1963. (Arthur Walker/Chicago Tribune) Poet Gwendolyn Brooks walks out of her home at 7428 S. Evans Ave. in the Grand Crossing neighborhood of Chicago in 1961. Brooks lived in the same house on the South Side from 1953 to 1994. (Robert Mackay/Chicago Tribune) Gwendolyn Brooks, center, and Ald. Leon Despres, are congratulated by Columbia College President Mirron Alexandroff, right, at the commencement exercise where Brooks and Despres were given honorary degrees on June 16, 1964, at the Prudential Building. (John Vogele/Chicago Tribune) Gwendolyn Brooks, of Chicago, was named by Gov. Otto Kerner, right, the new poet laureate of Illinois on Jan. 8, 1968. Brooks, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and poet succeeds the late Carl Sandburg. (UPI Telephoto) Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, shown here on Aug. 5 1966, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 and gave voice to the experience of African- Americans with her first poetry anthology, "A Street in Bronzeville," in 1954. (Arnold Tolchin/Chicago Tribune) Illinois' poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, center, shares her thoughts on verse with poetry award winners at the University of Chicago on June 11, 1981. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune) Gwendolyn Brooks reviews papers in a sun-lit area of the Library of Congress on Dec. 13, 1985, in Washington D.C. Brooks is the consultant in poetry to the library. (Paul F. Gero/Chicago Tribune) Gwendolyn Brooks on Dec. 13, 1985, at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (Paul F. Gero/Chicago Tribune) Poet Gwendolyn Brooks talks with student writers after a poetry reading at Ancona School in Chicago on Feb. 10, 1992. (Ovie Carter/Chicago Tribune) Gwendolyn Brooks, Illinois poet laureate, celebrates her 70th birthday by blowing out the candles on a huge cake surrounded by young aspiring poets at Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago on June 7, 1987. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune) The home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks from 1953 to 1994 in the Grand Crossing neighborhood of Chicago, April 29, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Nora Brooks Blakely, daughter of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, left, and sculptor Margot McMahon speak to a group of children about poetry and the new statue of Brooks at Gwendolyn Brooks Park on June 6, 2018, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) A mural on the wall of 316 E. 75th St. celebrates Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, who lived in Grand Crossing from 1953 to 1994, April 29, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) A new statue of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, sculpted by Margot McMahon, stands at Gwendolyn Brooks Park on June 6, 2018, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) Show Caption1 of 17Gwendolyn Brooks, a 32-year-old housewife and part-time secretary, has won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 'Annie Allen,' a ballad of Black Chicago life on May 1, 1950. Brooks is the first Black woman to capture one of the famed awards. (ACME photo)Expand
1950: Poet Gwendolyn Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950, for 'Annie Allen,' a collection of works about a Black girl growing into womanhood while wrestling with racism, sexism, poverty and loss. A review in the Tribune praised its 'quick sense of the life of many people, the small intensities and the big disasters.'
1951: Minnie Minoso became the first Black player to play for the Chicago White Sox, homering in his first at-bat against Vic Raschi of the New York Yankees.
1960: Comiskey Park's exploding scoreboard debuted. Al Smith stepped up in the home half of the first inning of a doubleheader on May 1, 1960, and put the defending American League champs ahead with a two-run homer off Jim Bunning. Then the fun began.
Smith triggered the public debut of owner Bill Veeck's biggest, baddest pinball machine — his $300,000 exploding scoreboard. The tradition of saluting White Sox home runs continues to this day.
1974: The Tribune became the first news organization to publish the entire 246,000-word transcript of the Watergate tapes, scooping even the government printing office by several hours.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: The paper's role in the demise of Richard Nixon's presidency after Watergate
President Richard Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974.
1997: WMAQ-Ch. 5 evening news anchor Carol Marin quit after management hired talk show host Jerry Springer to deliver news commentaries. She had been at WMAQ for 19 years. Co-anchor Ron Magers quit two weeks later.
2004: Farnsworth House, a steel-and-glass masterwork by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rhode, opened for tours after preservationists spent $7.5 million to buy and keep the icon of 20th century modernism in Illinois.
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