Thure de Thulstrup
American, born Sweden, 1848 - 1930The Strike at East St. Louis - Firing Into the Crowd, 1886
Not on view
Engraving on paper
Dimensions16 × 21 7/8 in. (40.6 × 55.6 cm)
Image: 13 1/2 × 19 13/16 in. (34.3 × 50.3 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson, 1990.69
The Strike at East St Louis—Firing into the Crowd appeared in Harper’s Weekly on April 17, 1886, and is typical of Thure de Thulstrup's stock in trade illustrations that reported the news of the day. This image depicts one of a series of strikes by an early labor organization known as the Knights of Labor, who enacted a strike against the Gould Railway System. Firing into the Crowd is a singularly dramatic and bloody moment on April 9th, when unarmed strikers were fired upon and killed by the railroad company’s hired guards. Unfortunately this violence was not an uncommon or isolated incident. Brutal force was often employed to discourage labor strikes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Thure de Thulstrup, born in Stockholm, Sweden, was employed for twenty years as a staff artist at Harper's Weekly, a publication that chronicled the major events of the day for millions of readers throughout the United States and beyond.
