Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913

Plot Summary

From PBS - Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913 explores an epic labor strike that devastated Michigan’s Copper Country, and haunts the American labor movement to this day. Produced and directed by Emmy ® Award-winning film-maker Jonathan Silvers, the program traces the Copper Country strike from its hopeful start to that tragic conclusion. Between those endpoints, the film explores the intensifying battle between organized labor and corporate power, as well as the strike’s cultural legacy, which influenced national discourse, music, and legislation during the Progressive Era and the New Deal. Among the notable elements of the strike was the death of seventy-three children at a union Christmas Eve party, a tragedy immortalized by Woody Guthrie in his ballad "1913 Massacre" and performed by Steve Earle in the film. The event, known as the Italian Hall Disaster, remains the deadliest unsolved manslaughter in US history. As the centennial of the Italian Hall Disaster approaches, a new generation of Americans has begun paying tribute to the victims, while also deliberating the strike’s causes, outcomes, and legacy.