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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 15, 1913
Calumet District, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Maggie Aggarto
and Four Other Women Arrested on the Picket Line
From The Calumet News of September 11, 1913:
Thursday September 11, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Big Annie Clemenc Arrested with five other women.
Big Annie Clemenc, known throughout Michigan’s Copper Country for leading the daily parades of striking miners with her massive American flag, was arrested this morning in Calumet along with five other women. The women were accosted by Cruse’s deputies as they attempted to convince a miner not to go back to work. They put up a good fight against the deputies but were, eventually, arrested. Three hundred supporters followed behind the women as they were taken to the Calumet jail. The crowd remained outside the jail for two hours, cheering loudly for their release.
The crowd followed the six women as they were taken to the court of Judge William Fisher, and the cheering began again as Annie, Maggie Aggarto, and the four other women were released on their own recognizance. The women came out of the court undaunted, shouting and clapping their hands. They marched down the street with their supporters following behind cheering and shouting.
The six women are ordered to appear again in court next week.
The women of copper country are organized right beside the men of the Western Federation of Miners. Some say that the strike might have ended after the murder of the strikers at Seeberville had it not been for the women.
After the Seeberville killings it was the women who kept on marching when spirits were low. To the mines at Quincy, Painesdale, and Calumet they came with their eggs and tin cans to confront the scabs,
The women continue to march at 6:00 in the morning every day led by Big Annie and her massive flag. They are every bit a match for the combined strength of state militia, Cruse’s deputies and the Waddell gunthugs. General Abby fights them bravely from atop his horse, while the women fight on their feet. These are fighting women, not ladies.
One thing is clear: their spirits have not yet been broken.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913
Copy in possession of JR
The Calumet News
(Calumet, Michigan)
-Sept 11, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086633/1913-09-11/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086633/1913-09-11/ed-1/seq-6/
Rebels on the Range – p91
-by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
https://books.google.com/books?id=I4DhAAAAMAAJ
Big Annie of Calumet – p51
(Note: date of these events was Sept 11 not Sept 10)
-by Jerry Stanley
NY, 1996
https://books.google.com/books?id=cXHhAAAAMAAJ
See also:
Conditions in the Copper Mines of Michigan
Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the
Committee on Mines and Mining, House of Representatives,
Sixty-third Congress, second Session Pursuant to H. Res. 387,
Volume 4
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Mines and Mining
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914
(search: “annie clements”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=JlROAQAAMAAJ
Tag: Annie Clemenc
https://weneverforget.org/tag/annie-clemenc/
Tag: Michigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/michigan-copper-country-strike-of-1913-1914/
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Union woman