We Never Forget: Fellow Worker Joe Hill-Four Postcard Drawings Sent to Childhood Friend, Charles Rudberg in San Francisco

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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:

Big Show Tonight from Joe Hill at Coalinga to Rudberg at Sailors Rest San Pedro,  Jan 24, 1911
“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:

From Joe Hill at San Pedro to Rudberg at San Francisco, Mission to Fill, Apr 29, 1911
“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:

From Joe Hill at San Pedro to Rudberg at San Francisco, Hobo Gets Boot, Sept 2, 1911
“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.

From Joe Hill at SL County Jail to Rudberg, Merry XMass, Dec 18, 1914
“Merry X-mas and then some. Joe”

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