Drawings of Joe Hill, 1911 & 1914, from Postcards
Sent to Charles Rudberg
From Labor History Journal of Fall 1984:
JOE HILL-CARTOONIST
by PHILIP MASON
In 1980, the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University acquired four postcards written by Joe Hill, the “Wobbly songwriter and poet,” to a friend, Charles Rudberg, between the years 1911 and 1914. The four postcards contained more than the usual short message-each included a cartoon of drawing by Joe Hill…..
Mason goes on to describe the postcards (see below).
Mason fails to mention exactly how the postcards were acquired, but perhaps they came from Rudberg’s daughter, Frances Horn, of Ventura, California, with whom Mason had communicated. Horn stated that her father and Joe Hill were childhood friends in Galve, Sweden, and reunited later in San Francisco shortly before the San Francisco Fire. Both Rudberg and his daughters cherished the postcards from Joe Hill and kept them as “priceless heirlooms.”
Mason was, in 1984, Director of the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs , Wayne State Univ., Professor History Dept.
Franklin Rosemont states that in a letter to Mason on January 29, 1980, Frances Horn wrote that her father told her older sister that Joe could also “sing like an angel, play the violin like a master and write like a fury.”
POSTCARD DRAWINGS by JOE HILL
January 24, 1911 -from Joe Hill at Coalinga CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailors Rest Mission, San Pedro CA:
“Doings of Väran Kalle”
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April 29, 1911 -from Joe Hill at Sailors Rest Mission, San Pedro CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailor’s Union Hall, East Street, San Francisco CA:
“I’ve Got a Mission to Fill Don’t Ye Knauw, JO-EL”
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September 2, 1911 -from Joe Hill at San Pedro CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailors Union Hall, East Street, San Francisco CA:
“Oh you Hoboeing”
With Poem by Joe Hill:
The song of Mauser bullets may be exciting and the rattle of machine-guns may also have its thrills- but Oh you hoboeing!
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December 18, 1914 -from Joe Hill at Salt Lake County Jail, Salt Lake City UT to Charles Rudberg at San Francisco (?) CA Note: Joe was not moved to Utah State Pen until July 1915, after appeal for new trial was denied by Utah Supreme Court.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 8, 1911 Second Battle of Tijuana Ends in Defeat for Rebel Forces
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 6, 1911:
REBELS ARE DEFEATED BUT NOT CONQUERED —————
The liberal campaign in Lower California was practically ended with the defeat of the hundred men under General Jack Mosby at Tijuana, Mexico, on June 22nd, although there is yet two bands of armed rebel Mexicans, one near Santa Rosalia, in the southern end of the peninsula and another of about twenty-five men in the mountains between Tijuana and Mexicali in the north
[…..]
The rebels who surrendered were held at Fort Rosecrans for three days and then released with the exception of thirteenwho were deserters from the army and navyand Mosby and [Adjutant Bert] Laflin, whom the Madero government is trying to extradite to torture and murder in Mexico. Boys, will we stand for it? I’ll leave it to your actions. Will you act?
About the same time the battle took place the Liberal Junta in Los Angeles were arrested. They have already served three years in our vile American prisons and we must not let them serve any more years.
Subscribe for “Regeneracion” (address 519½ East Fourth street, Los Angeles) and learn the facts of the case.
Remember although the little campaign in Lower California has been smashed the Mexican people are not through revolting. Madero did not start the revolution NOR WILL HE END IT.
Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill
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Cartoon drawing by Joe Hill, September 1911
Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the second day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 2 of this series.
The Songs of Joe Hill, Published in the Little Red Songbook of 1913
The Industrial Worker of March 6, 1913 announced that the new edition of the Little Red Songbook would include eleven new songs. On the front cover, that issue of the songbook was designated as the Fifth Edition. Nine of the eleven new songs were by Joe Hill, and included: Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Two”→
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