Joe Hill (born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillstrom, October 7, 1879 – November 19, 1915) was a Swedish-American labor activist, poet, and songwriter. He was an itinerant worker for much of his life, organizing with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a militant anarcho-syndicalist labor union. His 1914 conviction for murder and execution under questionable evidence led to him becoming a folk hero among the American labor and radical movements.

Born to an impoverished and religious family in Gävle, Sweden, Hägglund learned to play various musical instruments from a young age, but was forced to work in factories following the death of his father in 1887. After the death of his mother in 1902, he emigrated with his brother to the United States, where he adopted the name Joe Hill. He traveled across much of North America as a hobo while working various odd jobs. He likely became associated with the IWW in 1910, while working as a longshoreman in Los Angeles. Hill is thought by some researchers to have participated in the 1911 Magonista rebellion in Mexico. That year, he also submitted his first songs to the IWW's Little Red Songbook. One of his first songs, a satire of the Salvation Army entitled "The Preacher and the Slave", became the most popular and reprinted of the IWW's songs, and Hill rose to be the most prolific and celebrated IWW songwriter. Other songs he later contributed, including "There Is Power in a Union" and "The Rebel Girl", became influential labor songs. His songs were generally sung to the tune of existing hymns or popular music, intended to be sung by groups as a means of raising class consciousness.

Salt Lake City grocer John G. Morrison and his son were murdered on the night of January 10, 1914, by a pair of gunmen. On that night, Hill had visited a doctor in the city with a gunshot wound through his chest, stating that he had been shot after arguing with a friend; a holstered firearm fell out of his pocket while at the office. Hill was arrested several days later and charged with murder. Hill maintained his innocence, but refused to give details about the nature of the argument with his friend, saying that he sought to protect the woman he had argued about from humiliation. The IWW rallied in Hill's defense. After Hill was found guilty and sentenced to death, the union launched a campaign for clemency. The execution was stayed in 1915, but despite the support for clemency by figures such as Swedish ambassador August Ekengren and President Woodrow Wilson, Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915. He was honored with a large funeral procession in Chicago, while the IWW had his ashes scattered across the world. Now generally considered to be the victim of legal injustice, Hill has been honored by an eponymous folk ballad, alongside various other musical and literary tributes.

Early life and career

Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund at his family's home in Gävle, Sweden, on October 7, 1879. His parents, Olaf and Margareta Katarina Hägglund, had nine children, of whom six survived childhood. His father worked as a railway conductor, but the family was quite poor. As both of Joel's parents were devout Lutherans, Hill attended Sunday school at the town's Bethlehem Church as a child, as well as Salvation Army meetings. His parents both had no interest in politics, but enjoyed music and sang together with their children. Joel learned to play the accordion, organ, guitar, and violin, the last of which was said to be his favorite. He wrote songs about family members and attended concerts at the Gävle worker's association hall.

In 1887, Olaf Hägglund died of internal bleeding following a workplace accident, leaving his family in dire finances. Often unable to afford food or heating, the children were sent to factories to work. Joel first worked at a rope factory, and later on a steam-powered crane. Around 1900, he was afflicted with joint and skin tuberculosis and traveled by himself to Stockholm to seek X-ray therapy. This did not cure his condition, and he intermittently stayed at Serafimer Hospital from April to October 1900 while working odd jobs. Surgical operations left him with scars on his neck and an especially thin nose.

Life in America Joel's mother, Margareta Katarina Hägglund, died in 1902 after two years of illness and back pain. Her children, now all old enough to live independently, decided to sell their home and move elsewhere. Four of the Hägglund children moved to different cities in Sweden, while Joel and his brother Paul decided to migrate to the United States, traveling to New York City on the passenger liner Saxonia. Both brothers had studied English at a Swedish YMCA branch. At some point while living in the United States, Joel changed his name to Joseph Hillstrom, later shortened to Joe Hill. This is likely derived from the village of , where his father was born. He did not stay in close contact with many of his siblings; only Paul and his sister Ester ever learned of his rise to prominence. Although he kept contact with some Swedish friends in the United States, he seems to have had few connections to the Swedish immigrant community or its labor movement.

Hill's activities in the decade following his immigration to the United States are mostly unknown. He spent around a year in New York City, at one point working as a barback and piano player at a saloon in the Bowery neighborhood. He spent about two months in Chicago, where he was fired from a job at a machine shop for attempting to organize with other workers. In 1905, he sent Christmas cards to his sisters postmarked from Cleveland, Ohio. The following year, he was caught in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and wrote about his experiences to a newspaper in Gävle. According to this account, he was drafted into the San Francisco Fire Department during the resulting blaze, where he "worked for thirty-six hours without food or drink". He also described spitting on a man who had been selling grossly overpriced food to survivors of the disaster.

Hill traveled frequently, living as a hobo (a migrant worker without a permanent home). He is known to have spent time at uncertain points in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the Dakotas; Spokane and Seattle, Washington; and Fresno, California. According to later accounts by his friends and his brother Paul, he avoided both smoking and drinking, calling liquor a "capitalist scheme to poison the working class". He is not known to have ever had a steady romantic partner, and refused to go to brothels when invited by friends. Multiple accounts describe him as an enthusiast of cooking Chinese cuisine.

Organizing career Hill worked as a laborer in a variety of trades, working variously as a mechanic, longshoreman, construction worker, farm worker, and lumberjack, in addition to occasional jobs playing music. An anonymous account published soon after his death states that in 1909 he worked at a factory manufacturing internal combustion engines; when the owner attempted to hire strikebreakers during a dispute, Hill is said to have encouraged the other workers to sabotage the machinery to halt operations.

In 1910, Hill traveled to Los Angeles, California, and then stayed for some time in the San Pedro district. While working as a longshoreman, he became associated with members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, with members known as 'Wobblies'), an anarcho-syndicalist labor union which rejected the collaborationist approach of larger unions such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL), instead agitating militantly for "One Big Union" to support all workers against the bourgeoisie. Hill eventually became the secretary of the San Pedro IWW chapter. In late August 1910, Hill was in Portland, Oregon; while there, he wrote an article for the IWW magazine Industrial Worker about a hobo he had met in Pendleton, Oregon, who had been severely beaten by a police officer.

The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. Los Angeles, with a large Mexican diaspora, was a center of political organizing for the leftist Mexican Liberal Party against the rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz and later Francisco Madero. Hill was likely part of a contingent of IWW members who joined the Magonista rebellion of 1911 and invaded Baja California, capturing Tijuana in early 1911 before being pushed back to the United States by the Mexican military in June. Hill later denied participating in the rebellion in a 1915 statement to his attorney; however, several Wobblies recounted fighting alongside him in Mexico. In a 1955 interview, former IWW member Sam Murray described a skirmish he had participated in alongside Hill: Hill and Murray were part of a group of 17 soldiers who had been sent south from Tijuana to scout for Federal troops. They were fired upon by a Federal advance force and held positions at a farmhouse and barn for about an hour before they were reinforced by John Mosby's forces; however, the Federal forces had several machine guns and far greater numbers, and eventually forced the insurrectionists to retreat to Tijuana. Hill later sneaked across the border into San Diego when Tijuana was overrun.

One IWW member later recalled Hill living at a beach shack in Hilo, Hawaii for several months, while they worked as longshoremen. This would match an account likely from his brother, who said Hill's "viking spirit" compelled him to travel between Los Angeles and Honolulu. Hawaii was a center of IWW activity during the 1910s, but it is unknown to what extent Hill participated in union organizing there.

Songwriting

Labor radicals in the United States had a tradition of singing songs which exhorted their beliefs, compiled in books such as the 1901 Socialist Songs with Music. The IWW had a great number of poets and songwriters, and publicized their songs and poetry as a means to promote the class struggle. In 1909, the Spokane IWW chapter published a brochure containing radical songs. Organizer J. H. Walsh created a larger booklet based off this brochure, which circulated throughout the union as the Little Red Songbook, subtitled as songs "to fan the flames of discontent". Hill first contributed a song to this book for its 1911 third edition; this song, a satire of the Salvation Army entitled "The Preacher and the Slave", would become his most widely-reprinted song. Other IWW songwriters described "The Preacher and the Slave" as a key factor to the songbook's spread and popular appeal. After Hill became the most prominent IWW songwriter, he was sometimes erroneously credited with the creation of the book.

The fourth edition of the Songbook, published in 1912, featured four more songs by Hill, including "Casey Jones the Union Scab". The fifth edition the following year included nine more of his songs, including "There Is Power in a Union" and "The Tramp". A sixth edition, published only six months later, included four more Hill songs. In 1912, the Los Angeles IWW published its own songbook, possibly compiled by Hill, which featured only Hill songs, as well as Charles H. Kerr's translation of The Internationale, a popular left-wing anthem. This book also included the first of Hill's published cartoons.

In 1912, 8,000 workers on the Canadian Northern Railway participated in one of the largest of the IWW's strike actions, shutting down the railway along much of the Fraser River in British Columbia. Hill traveled north to the strike camp in Yale, where he wrote "Where the Fraser River Flows" alongside several other songs. He stayed at the camp for much of April, disappearing south after the camp was raided by the North-West Mounted Police.