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“The Anarchist Riot in Chicago—A Dynamite Bomb Exploding Among the Police.”

This image appeared in Harper’s Weekly showing the violence in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. In it, an “anarchist” is depicted whipping the crowd into a frenzy as a bomb explodes and the police and a crowd member exchange gunfire. By the late nineteenth century, images in weekly and monthly periodicals were a major source of visual news for the public. Pictorial coverage of the Haymarket trial was almost uniformly hostile to the eight activists who were accused of inciting the crowd to violence.

Source: Thure de Thulstrup, Harper's Weekly, May 15, 1886, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Who Built America? An Open Educational Resource has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and funding from The Ford Foundation, Digital Scholar, and the City University of New York Central Office of Library Services. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this Open Educational Resource, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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