Father Dietz, the Catholic Church and the 1913 Michigan Copper Strike

Labor Historian Marc Karson has singled out “labor priest” Peter E. Dietz as one of the strongest proponents for the active implementation of the Catholic Church’s 1890’s labor encyclical Rerum Novarum in the daily practice of American Catholics. Biographer Sister Mary Harrita Fox pointed out that in his work, Dietz “was particularly concerned over the role of the church in the copper strike in Upper Michigan.” This “particular concern” should be noted since the 1913 strike was one of the only disputes where Dietz went out of his way to visit and become actively involved. Why the keen interest? This presentation will review the impetus for the huge effort which brought Peter E. Dietz to the Copper Country and solely to that dispute alone, the resulting visit and report that he made concerning the strike, the important role he believed this visit and stance in the Copper Strike had in the future of the Church’s relationship to the US labor movement. The presentation will look at both what Dietz thought would occur as a result of his 1913 trip to the Keweenaw and what actually happened in this pivotal pre-World War One era event. The paper will put Father Peter E. Dietz and the Catholic Church into the larger frame of how religion has been viewed within the history of the Strike.

Exhibit: "Michigan-I-O": Alan Lomax and the 1938 Library of Congress Folk-Song Expedition"

In 1938, a young folk music collector named Alan Lomax—destined to become one of the legendary folklorists of the 20th century recorded Michigan’s richly varied folk music traditions for the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress. Michigan in the 1930s was experiencing a golden age of folksong collecting, as local folklorists mined the trove of ballads remembered by aging lumbermen and Great Lakes schoonermen. In addition to the ballads of these north woods singers, Lomax recorded a vibrant mix of ethnic music from Detroit to the western Upper Peninsula. The multimedia performance event Folksongs from Michigan-i-o combines live performance with historic images, color movie footage, and recorded sound from the Great Depression. Some of these materials haven’t been heard or seen by the general public for more than seven decades. The traveling exhibition Michigan Folksong Legacy: Grand Discoveries from the Great Depression brings Alan Lomax’s 1938 field trip to life through words, song lyrics, photographs, and sound recordings. Ten interpretive banners explore themes and each panel contains a QR code that links to related sound recordings from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Exhibit: "Michigan-I-O": Alan Lomax and the 1938 Library of Congress Folk-Song Expedition"

In 1938, a young folk music collector named Alan Lomax—destined to become one of the legendary folklorists of the 20th century recorded Michigan’s richly varied folk music traditions for the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress. Michigan in the 1930s was experiencing a golden age of folksong collecting, as local folklorists mined the trove of ballads remembered by aging lumbermen and Great Lakes schoonermen. In addition to the ballads of these north woods singers, Lomax recorded a vibrant mix of ethnic music from Detroit to the western Upper Peninsula. The multimedia performance event Folksongs from Michigan-i-o combines live performance with historic images, color movie footage, and recorded sound from the Great Depression. Some of these materials haven’t been heard or seen by the general public for more than seven decades. The traveling exhibition Michigan Folksong Legacy: Grand Discoveries from the Great Depression brings Alan Lomax’s 1938 field trip to life through words, song lyrics, photographs, and sound recordings. Ten interpretive banners explore themes and each panel contains a QR code that links to related sound recordings from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Exhibit: "Michigan-I-O": Alan Lomax and the 1938 Library of Congress Folk-Song Expedition

In 1938, a young folk music collector named Alan Lomax—destined to become one of the legendary folklorists of the 20th century recorded Michigan’s richly varied folk music traditions for the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress. Michigan in the 1930s was experiencing a golden age of folksong collecting, as local folklorists mined the trove of ballads remembered by aging lumbermen and Great Lakes schoonermen. In addition to the ballads of these north woods singers, Lomax recorded a vibrant mix of ethnic music from Detroit to the western Upper Peninsula. The multimedia performance event Folksongs from Michigan-i-o combines live performance with historic images, color movie footage, and recorded sound from the Great Depression. Some of these materials haven’t been heard or seen by the general public for more than seven decades. The traveling exhibition Michigan Folksong Legacy: Grand Discoveries from the Great Depression brings Alan Lomax’s 1938 field trip to life through words, song lyrics, photographs, and sound recordings. Ten interpretive banners explore themes and each panel contains a QR code that links to related sound recordings from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.