A bit of family history underscoring why labor needs to be at the table in this nation .

[Skidmore]

I was going through some of my genealogy files this morning and came upon this little obituary again. I hadn't seen it for a while and I weep every time I read it. I did not get a chance to ever know the great uncle whose death it documents. He died a very horrible death at a very young age. He was my paternal grandmother's brother. The brother referenced in the obituary was 13 at the time. Today these boys would not be working in factories and would have been in school.

Obituary from the Warsaw Bulletin, Warsaw, Illinois 1910.

The death of Eddie Harrison age 10 from burning at Hamilton, Thursday of last week, was especially pathetic. Only a few weeks ago, the boy's mother had died and the father was endeavoring to keep his family together in a measure. The father & three sons lived at home and the little girl (Jeannette called Jennie) stayed with an aunt. The father & eldest son were employed in the cereal works at Keokuk and Eddie in Keokuk shoe factory. On Wed., Eddie remained at home not feeling well. He attempted to rekindle the fire with what he supposed to be coal oil but by mistake got hold of gasoline and an explosion followed enveloping him in flames. He rushed out of doors in the snow but the ice coating prevented putting out the fire. A neighbor seized a rug and smothered the fire with this, but the youth was so fearfully burned that he died the following day.

In the following year, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire would happen and the reforms coming out of this horrible event would set child labor laws in place.

[OHdem10]

1. The Unions helped build the Middle Class in this country, therefore

if we want to try to keep a Middle Class we will need
Unions.