Tour guides: Illinois Labor History Society

Explore Chicago’s pivotal role in American labor history with guided bus tours to two iconic locations. Both tours will be offered in the morning and the afternoon.

FEE: $33.85 per tour (covers lunch and docents)

Attendance limit: 52 people per tour

Pick up and drop off location: McCormick Place – 2301 S. Prairie

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: Thursday, September 11, 2025

EVENT DETAILS

TOUR 1: Haymarket / Packingtown
8:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. | 1:00-4:40 p.m.

Haymarket

Visit two sites related to the two-year campaign for the eight-hour day, culminating in the general strike of 1886. When a bomb was thrown at a related rally, known as the Haymarket Incident, labor leaders involved in the campaign were framed, convicted and executed. The workers’ holiday known as Mayday has its roots in these events. Learn about the political culture of the day and its impact on the local labor movement and across the country.

Sites: The Haymarket Incident site and the graves of executed labor leaders at Forest Home Cemetery

Packingtown

For over a century, Chicago was often referred to as the “Hog Butcher to the World.” Learn about the repeated struggles to organize the workforce in the stockyards and packing houses during the first half of the last century, the need for integrated industrial unions, and the leadership roles Black people, women, and Latinas/os played. Discover the role of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (now part of the United Food and Commercial Workers) in the civil rights movement.

Sites: The stockyards gate, the firefighters’ memorial, and the packinghouse workers mural at the former UPWA District 1 headquarters

REGISTER FOR THIS TOUR:

Haymarket/Packingtown MORNING

Haymarket/Packingtown AFTERNOON

TOUR 2: Pullman Historic District and Steelmakers Park
8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | 1:00-5:00 p.m. 

Pullman

Visit the former Gilded Age company town, where luxury train cars were built, providing good jobs and the best amenities, but no local democratic institutions. By 1894, workers suffered under the weight of the latest depression and went on strike. The strike soon evolved into a convulsive nationwide boycott involving 250,000 railroaders across 27 states, with Chicago coming under martial law for most of the summer of 1894. Some historians believe Labor Day emerged as a federal holiday as a result. Learn about the separate history of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Women’s Auxiliary organizing drive, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph in the 1920s and ’30s.

Sites: National Park Service Visitors Center, Historic Pullman Foundation Exhibit Hall, and a brief walk around the town, now a thriving neighborhood in Chicago

Steel Memorials

For nearly a century, Southeast Chicago and Northwest Indiana produced the most steel in the world. Learn about the events surrounding the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, when 10 people were killed and scores injured when Chicago Police opened fire on strikers attempting to form a picket line at Republic Steel. Occurring at the height of the organizing drive in steel mills across the country, this tragedy would play a role in the eventual founding of the United Steelworkers five years later.

Fast forward to the 1970s, where the USWA women’s caucus brought steelworker women together to fight for equal rights on the job, and against racial, gender, and pregnancy discrimination. Women found innovative ways, through health and safety campaigns, to build bridges with their male coworkers.

Sites: The Steelworkers Memorial Statue, located near the former site of the Republic Steel Mill, and Steelworkers Park, situated on the former site of U.S. Steel Southworks

REGISTER FOR THIS TOUR:

Pullman/Steelmakers Park MORNING

Pullman/Steelmakers Park AFTERNOON

Tour bus service is provided by AFL-CIO.

Hosted by: Chicago Jobs With Justice

Join Jobs With Justice and connect with fellow conference attendees at a rollerskating party!

EVENT DETAILS COMING SOON!