The Molly Maguires

The Molly Maguires

Twenty immature Irishmen were hanged inwards the anthracite share of northeast Pennsylvania inwards the belatedly 1870s, convicted of a serial of killings stretching dorsum to the Civil War. The convicted men were members of an alleged surreptitious social club called the “Molly Maguires,” said to receive got been imported from the Irish Gaelic countryside, where a social club of the same shout out was active inwards the 1840s.

In Pennsylvania the Molly Maguires apparently acted behind the embrace of an ostensibly peaceful Irish Gaelic fraternal organisation called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH). The representative was cracked yesteryear a Pinkerton detective, James McParlan, who spent almost 2 years inwards the coal district working undercover.

More than 50 Molly Maguires went on trial betwixt 1875 in addition to 1878; 20 were executed in addition to 20 to a greater extent than went to prison. The kickoff x Molly Maguires were hanged on a unmarried day, 21 June 1877, known to the people of the anthracite share e'er since equally “Black Thursday.”


The Molly Maguires stood accused of killing equally many equally 16 mine owners, superintendents, bosses, in addition to workers. Their trials, conducted inwards the midst of enormously hostile national publicity, were a travesty of justice. The defendants were arrested yesteryear the private police pull strength of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, whose ambitious president, Franklin B. Gowen, had financed the Pinkerton operation.

They were convicted on the prove of an undercover detective who was accused (somewhat half-heartedly) yesteryear the defence of beingness an agent provocateur, supplemented yesteryear the confessions of a serial of informers who had turned state’s prove to salvage their necks.

Irish Gaelic Catholics were excluded from the juries equally a affair of course. Most of the prosecuting attorneys worked for railroads in addition to mining companies. Remarkably, Franklin B. Gowen himself appeared equally the star prosecutor at several trials, amongst his courtroom speeches rushed into impress equally pop pamphlets.

In effect, the AOH itself was seat on trial: mere membership of that organisation was presented equally de facto membership of the Molly Maguires, in addition to membership of either was routinely presented yesteryear the prosecution equally prove of guilt—on charges non only of belonging to an oath-bound social club but of using that social club to computer programme in addition to execute diabolical crimes.

Viewed inwards retrospect, the representative of the Molly Maguires displayed many of the classic hallmarks of a U.S. conspiracy theory. Even yesteryear nineteenth-century standards the arrests, trials, in addition to executions were flagrant inwards their abuse of judicial physical care for in addition to their flaunting of corporate power. Yet only a handful of dissenting voices were to move heard, chiefly those of project radicals.

To explicate why something similar this could hap it is of import to empathise why the prosecution’s depiction of the Irish Gaelic defendants seemed hence convincing to contemporaries. The prosecution offered no plausible explanation of motive in addition to nor, it seems, was 1 expected.

The explanation of Irish Gaelic depravity was only that the Irish Gaelic were depraved yesteryear nature; they killed people because that’s the type of people they were. This argument, patch perfectly circular, was a surprisingly powerful 1 inwards the U.S. of the mid-nineteenth century.

Irish Gaelic American violence in addition to depravity, from the project upheavals in addition to urban rioting of the antebellum era to the draft riots of the Civil War in addition to the Orange in addition to Green riots of 1870–1871, were presented equally the logical transatlantic outgrowth of an alien immigrant culture.

In the United States, moreover, that civilisation was equipped amongst an international conspiratorial organization, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, whose tentacles were said to hit across both the North American continent in addition to the Atlantic Ocean.

The inherent savagery of the Irish Gaelic was the guiding premise inwards what passed for the kickoff moving ridge of interpretation of the Molly Maguires, a current of pamphlets, paper reports, in addition to histories produced yesteryear contemporaries.

Even a somewhat sympathetic observer similar Dewees (The Molly Maguires: The Origins, Growth, in addition to Character of the Organization, 1877) took the Irish Gaelic propensity for violence to a greater extent than or less for granted, patch the writer of the other measure contemporary history, Allan Pinkerton—founder of the famous detective agency—took Irish Gaelic depravity equally his key theme (The Molly Maguires in addition to the Detectives, 1877).

This highly pejorative in addition to highly conspiratorial perspective, which constituted the foundational myth of the Molly Maguires, remained dominant for the adjacent 2 generations, resurfacing, for example, inwards Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Valley of Fear (1904) in addition to providing a staple of dime novel fiction until the mid-twentieth century.

By the 1930s, however, the tide had begun to turn. Anthony Bimba, a Marxist historian, was the kickoff to offering a major revision (The Molly Maguires, 1932), placing the Molly Maguire affair firmly inwards the context of project in addition to capital.

So concerned was Bimba to overturn the prevailing myth of the Molly Maguires, however, that he turned it on its head, retaining its elements of circularity, tautology, in addition to conspiracy patch transferring the burden of evil from Irish Gaelic workers to their employers. Evil is non a real useful category of historical analysis, at to the lowest degree inwards cases similar this, for it freezes fourth dimension in addition to graphic symbol rather than trying to explicate causation in addition to motivation.

Why did the employers frame 20 innocent men? Because they were evil; or, seat roughly other way, because they were capitalist. At the same time, yesteryear collapsing all workers into a unmarried category, Bimba ignored the shape in addition to ethnic multifariousness amid them, a consideration that is directly crucial to our understanding.

J. Walter Coleman, inwards The Molly Maguire Riots: Industrial Conflict inwards the Pennsylvania Coal Region (1936), was the kickoff to opened upwards up this business of inquiry. Despite its apparently pejorative title, Coleman’s majority is amid the most sympathetic in addition to convincing accounts of the subject.

The Molly Maguires, he argued, represented a specifically Irish Gaelic shape of project protest, distinct from the British-inspired tradition of merchandise unionism inwards the anthracite region. If this multifariousness is 1 of the keys to agreement the Molly Maguires, roughly other is the inherent unreliability of the prove produced yesteryear James McParlan. He was, after all, a trained liar.

Both of these points were persuasively made yesteryear Coleman but largely ignored inwards Wayne G. Broehl’s The Molly Maguires (1964), which, yesteryear the standards of its time, seems curiously sympathetic to James McParlan, to his employer Allan Pinkerton, in addition to to the employer of both, Franklin B. Gowen.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 rendition of the land of study to a greater extent than inwards keeping amongst the radical ethic of the 1960s tin move found inwards the celluloid The Molly Maguires (dir. Martin Ritt 1970) starring Sean Connery equally the hero (alleged Molly ringleader John Kehoe) in addition to Richard Harris equally the anti-hero (turncoat James McParlan).

It is a revealing footnote to U.S. cultural history that the director, Walter Bernstein, had been blacklisted inwards the McCarthy era in addition to inwards business office saw his celluloid equally a response to Elia Kazan, who had notoriously “named names” inwards the 1950s, in addition to whose hero inwards On the Waterfront informs against his corrupt nuptials bosses.

How, then, is 1 to brand feel of the Molly Maguires? Clearly, what is needed is an explanation that tin interruption gratis of the 2 existing poles of interpretation: the Molly Maguires equally depraved killers in addition to the Molly Maguires equally innocent victims of oppression, whether economic, religious, or ethnic.

The Mollys themselves, beingness socially marginalized in addition to largely illiterate, left us virtually no evidence, which exposes the land of study to all mode of conspiracy theories, from both the Right in addition to the Left. We do, however, receive got enough of prove almost them left yesteryear other people: employers, Catholic clergymen, politicians, newspapermen, pamphleteers, census takers, authorities officials, in addition to contemporary historians.

Read carefully, these forms of prove tin yield at to the lowest degree roughly reliable information almost who the Mollys were. Equally important, they tin tell us a peachy grapple almost the aims in addition to motivations of those who laid out to destroy them. In the end, though, roughly fundamental historical questions demand at to the lowest degree a tentative answer: Who were the Molly Maguires, what did they do, in addition to why?

The starting house inwards seeking an reply to these questions is the terra firma where the Molly Maguires originated. To the historian familiar amongst Republic of Ireland equally good equally the United States, the most smasher appear of the activities inwards Pennsylvania is how clearly they conformed to a designing of fierce protestation evident inwards the Irish Gaelic countryside from the mid-eighteenth century onward.

The Molly Maguires, who emerged toward the goal of the Great Famine (1845–1851), were hence named because their members (invariably immature men) disguised themselves inwards women’s clothing, used pulverization or burnt cork on their faces, in addition to pledged their allegiance to a mythical adult woman who symbolized their scrap against injustice.

The American Mollys were plainly a rare transatlantic outgrowth of this designing of Irish Gaelic rural protest. Contrary to contemporary conspiracy theories, however, it is highly unlikely that in that location was whatsoever direct continuity of organisation or personnel betwixt Republic of Ireland in addition to Pennsylvania.

There is no prove at all that a conspiratorial organisation was somehow imported into the U.S. yesteryear Irish Gaelic immigrants, nor is in that location whatsoever prove that individuals convicted inwards Pennsylvania had been involved inwards fierce activities inwards Ireland.

The immigrants did arrive, however, amongst a cultural retention in addition to established social traditions. Faced amongst appalling weather condition inwards the mines of Pennsylvania, they responded yesteryear deploying a specifically Irish Gaelic shape of collective violence against their enemies, upwards to in addition to including assassination.

To that extent, the American Molly Maguires clearly did exist, fifty-fifty if they never existed equally the full-fledged diabolical organisation depicted yesteryear contemporaries. They were non purely a figment of the conspiratorial imagination; indeed the conspiracy theories almost them could receive got achieved piddling credibility if Irish Gaelic workers had non been engaged inwards collective violence of roughly sort.

There were 2 distinct waves of Molly Maguire action inwards Pennsylvania, 1 inwards the 1860s in addition to the other inwards the 1870s. The kickoff wave, which included half dozen assassinations, occurred during in addition to straight after the Civil War.

Nobody was convicted of these crimes at the time, although a mysterious grouping called the Molly Maguires was widely believed to move responsible. Only during the trials of the 1870s were the killings of the previous decade retrospectively traced to private members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

At the view of the violence inwards the 1860s was a combination of resistance to the armed services draft amongst roughly shape of rudimentary project organizing yesteryear a shadowy grouping known variously equally the “Committee,” the “Buckshots,” in addition to the “Molly Maguires.” During the crisis of the Civil War, all forms of project organizing were seen equally potentially seditious.

The minute moving ridge of violence did non occur until 1875, inwards business office because of the introduction of a to a greater extent than efficient policing in addition to judicial system, but mainly because of the emergence of a powerful novel merchandise union, the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA), which united Irish, British, in addition to U.S. workers across the lines of ethnicity in addition to skill.

The project displace of the anthracite share directly took 2 distinct but overlapping forms: a powerful in addition to inclusive merchandise nuptials movement, one-half of whose leaders were Irishborn; in addition to an alone Irish Gaelic in addition to largely unskilled grouping of workers called the Molly Maguires.

Favoring collective bargaining, strikes, in addition to peaceful reform, the leaders of the WBA publicly condemned violence, singling out the Molly Maguires specifically. Yet Franklin B. Gowen repeatedly insisted that the WBA was only a embrace for the Molly Maguires, who constituted the union’s terrorist arm.

Although this claim was manifestly false, it was highly effective; yesteryear collapsing the distinction betwixt the 2 organizations Gowen succeeded inwards destroying the might of both. Not only was the nuptials discredited yesteryear this strategy, the Molly Maguires were equipped amongst an institutional construction they never had. The defeat of 1 would directly entail the defeat of the other.

To get together information against both arms of the project movement, Gowen hired Allan Pinkerton inwards Oct 1873. Pinkerton dispatched James McParlan to the anthracite region. Several other agents would follow later. Shortly after McParlan fled the anthracite region, inwards outflow 1875, matters reached a climax. After a heroic six-month strike against Gowen in addition to his railroad, the WBA went downwardly to in conclusion defeat.

In the disarray that followed, the Molly Maguires stepped upwards their activities to a novel level: half dozen of the 16 assassinations attributed to them took house inwards the summertime of 1875, fifty-fifty equally the leaders of the now-defunct merchandise nuptials continued to vocalization their condemnation. In Jan 1876 the arrests began, in addition to that summertime the famous trials commenced.

With project utterly defeated, Franklin B. Gowen completed his conquest of the local economy, securing total command over production in addition to distribution inwards the lower anthracite region. This was the goal the merchandise nuptials in addition to the Molly Maguires had long threatened, in addition to it is quite clear that Gowen had been prepared to receive got all necessary way to eliminate that threat.

For almost a century nobody inwards the Pennsylvania anthracite share was willing to say much almost the Molly Maguires. The story was equally good painful, equally good divisive. Not the to the lowest degree remarkable appear of this ongoing story, however, has been a dramatic renewal of involvement inwards the anthracite share itself.

Every June 21 for the in conclusion half dozen years several hundred people receive got arrived inwards the mining share to commemorate the Molly Maguires. Descendants of the convicted men in addition to their alleged victims receive got sat downwardly together to eat, drink, in addition to talk.

The dominant banking company annotation of each year’s gathering has been how to include all sides in addition to perspectives. This ecumenical spirit, hence clearly lacking inwards the 1870s, provides the best run a peril today of agreement 1 of the to a greater extent than tragic tales inwards the history of U.S. labor.