Joe Hill’s Great-Grand Niece, Lovisa Samuelsson performs a song she wrote for Joe Hill at the Joe Hill Centennial Celebration in Salt Lake, Utah. She is joined on stage by her mother, Pia Samuelsson, and her uncle, Rolf Hägglund. They are descendants of Joe Hill’s brother Efraim Hägglund. She is playing on the guitar of Utah Phillips which contains some of Joe Hill’s ashes.
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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Hilda Erickson
There are three love songs written by Joe Hill that have survived to make their way into our Rebel Songwriter’s musical legacy. Two were found in his room when it was searched soon after his arrest in January of 1914. These two songs were subsequently published in The Salt Lake Tribune of June 21, 1914. The third was found years later in Stockholm, Sweden, during a search of the Joe Hill file of the Archives of the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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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Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at Sailors’ Rest Mission in San Pedro, April 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 fourth 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 4 of this series.
The Songs & Poems of Joe Hill,
Published in the Little Red Songbooks of 1914 & 1916
The Eighth Edition of the Little Red Songbook, published in Cleveland and dated December, 1914, was dedicated as the “Joe Hill Edition.” There were no new Joe Hill song’s in that edition, but there was a poem headed by a drawing of a wooden shoe entitled “The Rebel’s Toast.” The poem appears under the song “Liberty Forever,” but Green believes that the two are not related and states that there is no evidence to indicate that Joe Hill intended for the poem to be sung.
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 3 of this series.
Then we’ll sing one song of the One Big Union Grand,
The hope of the toiler and slave,
It’s coming fast; it is sweeping sea and land,
To the terror of the grafter and the knave.
-Joe Hill
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The Songs of Joe Hill from the Little Red Songbook, Part 1.
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Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at Sailors’ Rest Mission in San Pedro, April 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. Over the next few days, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, will feature FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy by 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 1 of this series.
I. W. W. movement has been sealed in
the sweet blood of this poet-radical.
-Jim Larkin
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Saturday November 27, 1915
Chicago, Illinois-
I. W. W. Gives FW Joe Hill a Grand Send-Off, Thousands March
A grand funeral hosted by the Industrial Workers of the World was provided for Fellow Worker Joe Hill, Working Class Martyr. Thousands gathered in the West Side Auditorium on Thanksgiving morning, November 25th. The windows of the auditorium were open and the singing within could be heard by the the thousands who filled the streets outside, extending for blocks in every direction.
After the morning’s orations were completed, a great throng of mourners followed the casket to the train which bore the remains of FW Joe Hill to Graceland Cemetery. Another funeral service took place there followed by singing which lasted late into the night.
My body? Oh, if I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce..
-Joe Hill
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Wednesday November 24, 1915
Chicago, Illinois-
Body of Fellow Worker Joe Hill Arrives on Train from Salt Lake City
The body of Joe Hill, accompanied by Fellow Worker Bert Lorton, arrived by train from Salt Lake City yesterday. On hand at the Northwestern Depot to take charge of the of the remains of the Rebel Songwriter was a committee from the national headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World, which included another rebel poet and songwriter, Ralph Chaplin. Chaplin states that arrangements are underway for the funeral of Joe Hill and that his body will cremated according to Hill’s wishes as expressed in his “Last and Final Will.”
The will was written by FW Hill in the form of a poem, now being published in newspapers across the nation. The following is from a Kansas newspaper, The Salina Evening Journal, edition of November 22nd:
Tuesday November 23, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah-
Execution of FW Joe Hill Cost County $371.80
The men who were selected to shoot bullets into the heart of Fellow Worker Joe Hill will, apparently, be very well paid, for most of the nearly 380 dollars, allocated by the county for that purpose, goes to them. Pretty good pay for just a few minutes of work, if one does not mind being paid to put another human being to death.
The body of our Rebel Songwriter is now a train to Chicago and will arrive there this afternoon. A grand funeral followed by a march to the cemetery is being planned at I. W. W. headquarters in that city for later on in the week.
Monday November 22, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah-
Joe Hill Given Grand Send-off, Will Arrive in Chicago Tomorrow
Fellow Worker Joe Hill, our martyred rebel songwriter, was given a grand send-off in Salt Lake City before his body was placed upon a train bound for Chicago where another grand funeral will be held in that city, headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World. The Salt Lake City funeral was presided over by I. W. W. Local Union #69 and by Verdandi, Swedish Temperance Society.
Unfortunately, the only report of the funeral that we have on hand is from the hostile Salt Lake Tribune, one of the newspapers which so gleefully reported the Governor’s intention to drive the I. W. W. from Salt Lake immediately following the murder of our fellow worker. Nevertheless, as can be seen below, the unquenchable spirit of Solidarity displayed by those in attendance shines through the anti-I. W. W. propaganda of the Tribune’s reporting.
I will die like a rebel…
My best to everybody. Goodbye.
-Joe Hill
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 21, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah-
Walking with FW Joe Hill on His Last Day and to the Execution
Today there will be held in Salt Lake City a grand I. W. W. funeral for Fellow Worker Joe Hill. After the funeral his body will be placed on a train and shipped to Chicago where another funeral will be held later this week. The Chicago send-off may prove to be the largest funeral ever held in that city.
Today, as promised, Hellraisers, to the best of our ability and from the sources available, reconstructs the last day and the final moments of Fellow Worker Joe Hill.
