Chicago's German-Jewish Labor History, from Haymarket to the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike

How did a group of immigrant teenage girls start one of the largest labor strikes in Chicago's history? What did the execution of four men by the State of Illinois twenty-five years earlier have to do with this strike? Why did Jewish activists gather in old German beer halls in the early 1900s?

Learn the answers to these questions and more on Chicago Shpatz's new tour of Chicago's German-Jewish Labor History, commissioned by the Goethe-Institut Chicago and led by Ben Schacht and Matthew Schlerf. This guided tour of Randolph Street will use methods of street theater and historical reenactment to illustrate how Jewish immigrants and activists moved from the background of the 1886 Haymarket Affair to the foreground of the 1910 Chicago Garment Strike.

Topics covered will include the political and industrial revolutions of 1848, German and Jewish immigration to Chicago, the Civil War and the Great Chicago Fire, the use of Turnverein (or Turner Halls) and Hull-House as hubs for social activism, Chicago's German and Yiddish press, the eight-hour day movement, and the class divide between machers ("leaders") and shnorrers ("beggars") in Chicago's early Jewish community.

Each tour will cover 1.5 miles in 90 minutes without intermission. The tour is a straight line down Randolph Street, beginning at the Haymarket Memorial and ending outside the Chicago Cultural Center. The cost of the tour is $20 per person with each tour capped at 20 participants. You will receive more information, including payment instructions, after completing this form. Your spot on the tour is guaranteed once your payment is received.

If you have any questions regarding accessibility, sliding scale payment, or private tour rates, please reach out to chicagoshpatz@gmail.com.

TOUR DATES

Wednesday, June 24 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Sunday, July 19 from 11:00am to 12:30pm
Thursday, July 23 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm

ABOUT THE TOURS

Ben Schacht is a writer, educator, and board member of the Chicago YIVO Society. He holds a PhD in comparative literature from Northwestern University.

Matthew Schlerf is a performer, tour guide, and community organizer. He holds an MFA in collaborative theatre making from Rose Bruford College in London. This July, Ben and Matthew will co-teach an adult education course at the Newberry Library titled "A Social History of Yiddish Chicago" (details forthcoming).

Chicago Shpatz is an experimental theater collective created by artists Matthew Schlerf and Sivan Spector. The word shpatz is a Yiddish pun based on the words shpatzir (“stroll”) and shpas (“joke”). Chicago Shpatz specializes in immersive, site-specific and environmental theater, blurring the lines between tour guide and storyteller, and bringing the history of Chicago and its peoples out of the archives and into the public.