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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 17, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – American Flag Knocked to the Ground by Guardsmen
From the Chicago Day Book of September 16, 1913:
Saturday Morning September 13, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Big Annie and Her American Flag Attacked by Guardsmen
Just days after her arrest Big Annie is back in the thick of the fight. This morning she led a march of 1,000 strikers and the women who support them through the streets of Calumet as is her usual routine. At the corner of Eighth and Elm, they were confronted by the militia and armed deputies. A soldier on horseback used his saber to knock her flag from her grasp. A striker came to her aid and was pushed to the ground by another soldier who ripped the silk fabric of the flag as he slashed about with his sword.
Annie was also knocked to the ground. The flag was stomped into the mud by the horses of the guardsmen. Big Annie hung on to the flag as soldiers tried to take it from her, shouting:
Kill me! Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won’t move. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.
Annie was rescued by other marchers and escaped with only a bayonet blow to the right wrist. The strikers’ march was driven back by soldiers on horseback and by the rifle butts of infantrymen. Deputies joined in on the attack swinging their clubs. The strikers and their supporters retreated to the Italian Hall with Big Annie and her flag, now muddied and slashed.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Annie Clemenc re Flag
–Miners Bulletin of Sept 16, 1913
per:
Annie Clemenc and the Great Keweenaw Copper Strike
-by Lyndon Comstock, Jun 12, 2013
(search: go ahead)
Note: quote is on page 42 of my copy.
-Sadly, I don’t have copy of this issue of Miners Bulletin.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0-FGAgAAQBAJ
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 16, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1913-09-16/ed-1/seq-5/
Rebels on the Range – p92
-by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
https://books.google.com/books?id=I4DhAAAAMAAJ
Big Annie of Calumet – p51
-by Jerry Stanley
NY, 1996
https://books.google.com/books?id=cXHhAAAAMAAJ
See also:
Calumet District, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Maggie Aggarto and Four Other Women Arrested on the Picket Line
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086633/1913-09-13/ed-1/seq-1/
Day Book of Sept 16, 1913 pages 1-5
“Starvation and Cold Weather to Be Mine Owners’ Weapons”
-by N. D. Cochran
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1913-09-16/ed-1/seq-1/
Day Book of October 8, 1913
“Heroine Whose Name Is Not Found in the Society Columns”
-by N. D. Cochran
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1913-10-08/ed-1/seq-1/
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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I Am a Union Woman