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Joe Hill
A remarkable portrait of one of American labor's most enduring legends: Blending fact with fiction, Wallace Stegner retells the story of Joe Hill, the Wobbly bard who became the stuff of legend when, in 1915, he was executed for the alleged murder of a Salt Lake City businessman. Organizer, agitator, "Labor's Songster"--a rebel from the skin inwards, with an absolute faith in the One Big Union--Joe Hill fought tirelessly in the frequently violent battles between organized labor & industry. But tho songs & stories still vaunt him & his legend continues to inspire those who feel the injustices he fought against, Joe Hill may not have been a saintly crusader, & may have been motivated by impulses darker than the search for justice. Joe Hill is full-bodied portrait of both the man & the myth: from his entrance into the short-lived Industrial Workers of the World union, the most militant organization in the history of American labor, to his trial, imprisonment & final martyrdom-- his last words to the I.W.W., "Don't waste time mourning. Organize."
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
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About the author
Wallace Stegner
174Ìýbooks1,999ÌýfollowersWallace Earle Stegner was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. Some call him "The Dean of Western Writers." He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
August 24, 2013
"I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me." So goes the Woody Guthrie song about the legend of a union man. He was big and tough. He was no angel. And he was dedicated to the organizing of One Big Union. His personal life didn't seem very important in contrast. That is the impression that Wallace Stegner gives in this fictionalized version of Joseph Hillstrom's life. The book takes you into the dusty IWW union halls, sometimes used as flop houses by itinerant workingmen. You can feel the squalor of a sweltering tent encampment where families of pickers live beside hops fields near Sacramento without the benefit of hope of a better life or basic sanitary facilities. Those familiar with labor history and the Wobblies know the ending. Joe never really died. He lives on as legend through his songs and the stories that are told about him. We could use a man of courage like Joe Hll, willing to fight for workers rights, even today. Especially today.
October 19, 2020
Although technically fiction, this novel of labor organizer and song writer Joe Hill closely follows what is known of this man. This is very well written which is expected from this well-regarded author. Prior to this novel, I knew little about the labor movement on the west coast in the first decades of the 20th century or of Hill’s controversial conviction and execution for murder.
October 11, 2012
This is a book about Joe Hill, the Union Organiser and Wobbly Bard who was executed in 1915 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He of the famous son, sung in the 60's by Joan Baez, "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me...".
My edition is actually a Penguin edition not shown - which I got from Nile.
This is a strange blend of fact and fiction, man and myth written by a wonderful author whose books have recently occupied many hors while in bed sick. Wallace Stegner is a beautiful, magnificent writer. He is almost un-put-downable, but you have to just to think, re-read and savour the writing.
I will be reading all his work now. This book had me sitting almost in tears at the end, partly the story, partly the end of a journey in a world I did not want to leave. Stegner creates a full bloodied portrait of Joe and other characters like Lund. The violent battles between labour and industry are inspiring even today. Oh why are people not organising...I hated Joe's death and I did mourn - but as Joe said, "Don't waste time mourning. Organize"
My edition is actually a Penguin edition not shown - which I got from Nile.
This is a strange blend of fact and fiction, man and myth written by a wonderful author whose books have recently occupied many hors while in bed sick. Wallace Stegner is a beautiful, magnificent writer. He is almost un-put-downable, but you have to just to think, re-read and savour the writing.
I will be reading all his work now. This book had me sitting almost in tears at the end, partly the story, partly the end of a journey in a world I did not want to leave. Stegner creates a full bloodied portrait of Joe and other characters like Lund. The violent battles between labour and industry are inspiring even today. Oh why are people not organising...I hated Joe's death and I did mourn - but as Joe said, "Don't waste time mourning. Organize"
September 13, 2024
"You were born on the flypaper, and for a while you buzzed and made a big noise, and in the end you settled down like the rest, sodden and wing-stuck and slimed with the glue."
Wallace Stegner tends to make me gaze heavenward with hands clasped and pulsating cartoon hearts issuing from my eyes. Joe Hill (1950) sometimes catches some barbs for taking liberties with the story of the titular Industrial Workers of the World's legendary pot-stirrer, but Stegner is emphatic in his foreword that this is a biographical novel that goes its own way and not a history. That's good enough for me, and if in that way Joe Hill feels like Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter and William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner in twisting historical figures to his own ends, that's sensational company to be in.
Joe Hillstrom (popularly called Joe Hill), gained fame in the mid-1910s as a staunch organizer and agitator for workers' rights with the IWW (the "Wobblies"), the most militant labor organization in U.S. history; he became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union.
After a wobbly (** groan **) first few chapters, Stegner finds a groove and gets on with showing us his version of the last five years of Hill's life as he stirs up the labor situation in Oregon and California. We see a couple of violent/tense situations early on, but thereafter Stegner is content to show us the lead-up to Hill's and the IWW's agitation and not the climax; we see the lit fuse and not the explosion � in one case literally, when the last we see of a scene is Joe rigging a bridge to blow up.
There are times when we might hope for more of the bloody inside fight in the labor wars, but Stegner's tack here actually gets us closer to Hill. The book originally was called The Preacher and the Slave; the simpler, later title probably was a reaction to Hill's revival as a folk icon in the 1960s, but also happens to reflect Stegner's portrayal of Hill isolated as an agitator � it reflects the writer's homing in on the man over the movement � and it sets the stage for the novel's final third, when Hill is jailed in Salt Lake City, either a martyr to law's blindness or a double-murderer, but in any event feeling very much alone even as he feels his death will lead to a larger, greater good.
The preacher of the original title, whose friendship with Hill runs through the book, visits Joe in prison and tries to get Joe to tell the authorities what really happened; is Joe a murderer? The preacher doesn't know, and neither do we. It's a strange sort of sharp distance Stegner tightropes, giving us moving insights into Hill but keeping him ultimately unknowable. If the first third of the novel feels a bit like some of John Steinbeck's early novels about hardscrabble folks in California, albeit two decades earlier, the final third recalls the end of An American Tragedy, with lots going on internally (mostly with the preacher, Lund) even with the main character grounded in prison.
There's a wonderful few paragraphs in which Joe, who would wait for the authorities to put him to death by gunshot, allows himself the flash of a dream of a normal life in settling down with a wife and a mother-in-law, and to hell with the workers' revolution.
Stegner bookends Joe Hill with the union's and the world's reaction to Hill's death, widescreen stuff surrounding the intimacy of one man's fight.
The book is beautifully written � but of course, it's Wallace Stegner. Although we might crave more "action," or think we do, Stegner's keeping the novel small and centered on Hill, the man, works, when all is said and done. Joe Hill is a mostly riveting account of one man's search for justice amid a larger cause: " ... that humanity moves both ways on a street with a double dead-end, and that Vengeance sits with an axe at one end and Mercy sits in weak tears at the other, and that only Justice, which sits in the middle and looks both ways, can really choose."
Wallace Stegner tends to make me gaze heavenward with hands clasped and pulsating cartoon hearts issuing from my eyes. Joe Hill (1950) sometimes catches some barbs for taking liberties with the story of the titular Industrial Workers of the World's legendary pot-stirrer, but Stegner is emphatic in his foreword that this is a biographical novel that goes its own way and not a history. That's good enough for me, and if in that way Joe Hill feels like Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter and William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner in twisting historical figures to his own ends, that's sensational company to be in.
Joe Hillstrom (popularly called Joe Hill), gained fame in the mid-1910s as a staunch organizer and agitator for workers' rights with the IWW (the "Wobblies"), the most militant labor organization in U.S. history; he became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union.
After a wobbly (** groan **) first few chapters, Stegner finds a groove and gets on with showing us his version of the last five years of Hill's life as he stirs up the labor situation in Oregon and California. We see a couple of violent/tense situations early on, but thereafter Stegner is content to show us the lead-up to Hill's and the IWW's agitation and not the climax; we see the lit fuse and not the explosion � in one case literally, when the last we see of a scene is Joe rigging a bridge to blow up.
There are times when we might hope for more of the bloody inside fight in the labor wars, but Stegner's tack here actually gets us closer to Hill. The book originally was called The Preacher and the Slave; the simpler, later title probably was a reaction to Hill's revival as a folk icon in the 1960s, but also happens to reflect Stegner's portrayal of Hill isolated as an agitator � it reflects the writer's homing in on the man over the movement � and it sets the stage for the novel's final third, when Hill is jailed in Salt Lake City, either a martyr to law's blindness or a double-murderer, but in any event feeling very much alone even as he feels his death will lead to a larger, greater good.
The preacher of the original title, whose friendship with Hill runs through the book, visits Joe in prison and tries to get Joe to tell the authorities what really happened; is Joe a murderer? The preacher doesn't know, and neither do we. It's a strange sort of sharp distance Stegner tightropes, giving us moving insights into Hill but keeping him ultimately unknowable. If the first third of the novel feels a bit like some of John Steinbeck's early novels about hardscrabble folks in California, albeit two decades earlier, the final third recalls the end of An American Tragedy, with lots going on internally (mostly with the preacher, Lund) even with the main character grounded in prison.
There's a wonderful few paragraphs in which Joe, who would wait for the authorities to put him to death by gunshot, allows himself the flash of a dream of a normal life in settling down with a wife and a mother-in-law, and to hell with the workers' revolution.
Stegner bookends Joe Hill with the union's and the world's reaction to Hill's death, widescreen stuff surrounding the intimacy of one man's fight.
The book is beautifully written � but of course, it's Wallace Stegner. Although we might crave more "action," or think we do, Stegner's keeping the novel small and centered on Hill, the man, works, when all is said and done. Joe Hill is a mostly riveting account of one man's search for justice amid a larger cause: " ... that humanity moves both ways on a street with a double dead-end, and that Vengeance sits with an axe at one end and Mercy sits in weak tears at the other, and that only Justice, which sits in the middle and looks both ways, can really choose."
January 14, 2016
Summary: Wallace Stegner describes this as a “biographical novel� and in it, he fills out the enigmatic life and death of labor organizer and songwriter, Joe Hill, who was executed for murder before a Utah firing squad in November 1915.
Maybe you have heard of Joe Hill from the poem “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night� by Alfred Hayes set to music by Earl Robinson, and performed at Woodstock by Joan Baez, and a range of singers from Pete Seeger to Bruce Springsteen. Hill (also known as Joseph Hillstrom) was a Swedish laborer who emigrated to the U.S., traveling across country from New York to the West Coast and serving as an organizer and songwriter for the International Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the “Wobblies� or the “One Big Union.� He ended up in Utah in 1913, was accused and tried for the murder of a store owner and his son in a robbery attempt by two men in Salt Lake City. One of the two men was wounded. The same night Hill sought treatment for a gunshot wound that he claimed he received in a quarrel over a woman. He never revealed the name of the woman, and was found guilty, and despite efforts that went all the way to the Supreme Court and the President, was executed in November 1915 by firing squad. Among his last words were these:
“Don’t waste time mourning. Organize.� (in a telegram to labor leader Bill Haywood)
Wallace Stegner fleshes out the bare outlines of Hill’s story in this “biographical novel� that explores this enigmatic character, who wrote IWW’s songbook, traveled from town to town hopping trains, and escaping scrapes with goons shutting down labor rallies. He picks up the story in San Pedro where Hill is a dock worker. Much of Joe’s character is explored through the eyes of Gus Lund, a Lutheran mission pastor, who Hill often visited late at night, and who is present with Hill on his last night and at his execution. What emerges is a gifted musician and songwriter, a shadowy figure who skirts the edges of the law and of violence, a selfless organizer for the IWW who will accept no money, and one who views the capitalist system with cynicism, perhaps born of being the bastard son of a Swedish capitalist.
Perhaps the most striking scenes are in a farm labor camp where a labor rally turns ugly, resulting in the death of Joe’s fellow-organizer Art Manderich. We see the substandard housing and primitive sanitary facilities that created the conditions for disease and disability among workers and their families.
Nearly half of the novel is devoted to Hill’s last years in Utah, his humiliation in a music store when he tries to get a love song published, his arrest, his unwillingness to produce his alibi and stubborn insistence upon a new trial. And indeed, the eyewitnesses were unsure of their identification and there were other irregularities in the trial. Hill is portrayed as a martyr for labor. We are never quite sure whether Joe is really protecting the woman over whom he was reputedly wounded, his fellow traveler Otto Applequist, who had his own shadowy pastimes, or whether he really committed the murder but thought the apparent injustice of his execution would better serve the labor cause.
My impression was that Joe Hill was driven by a restless, never in life to be satisfied, anger. Was it really against the capitalist system, or did this personify his capitalist father? What we do know is that he died angry, crying out as his executioners prepared to fire:
“Fire � go on and fire!�
Maybe you have heard of Joe Hill from the poem “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night� by Alfred Hayes set to music by Earl Robinson, and performed at Woodstock by Joan Baez, and a range of singers from Pete Seeger to Bruce Springsteen. Hill (also known as Joseph Hillstrom) was a Swedish laborer who emigrated to the U.S., traveling across country from New York to the West Coast and serving as an organizer and songwriter for the International Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the “Wobblies� or the “One Big Union.� He ended up in Utah in 1913, was accused and tried for the murder of a store owner and his son in a robbery attempt by two men in Salt Lake City. One of the two men was wounded. The same night Hill sought treatment for a gunshot wound that he claimed he received in a quarrel over a woman. He never revealed the name of the woman, and was found guilty, and despite efforts that went all the way to the Supreme Court and the President, was executed in November 1915 by firing squad. Among his last words were these:
“Don’t waste time mourning. Organize.� (in a telegram to labor leader Bill Haywood)
Wallace Stegner fleshes out the bare outlines of Hill’s story in this “biographical novel� that explores this enigmatic character, who wrote IWW’s songbook, traveled from town to town hopping trains, and escaping scrapes with goons shutting down labor rallies. He picks up the story in San Pedro where Hill is a dock worker. Much of Joe’s character is explored through the eyes of Gus Lund, a Lutheran mission pastor, who Hill often visited late at night, and who is present with Hill on his last night and at his execution. What emerges is a gifted musician and songwriter, a shadowy figure who skirts the edges of the law and of violence, a selfless organizer for the IWW who will accept no money, and one who views the capitalist system with cynicism, perhaps born of being the bastard son of a Swedish capitalist.
Perhaps the most striking scenes are in a farm labor camp where a labor rally turns ugly, resulting in the death of Joe’s fellow-organizer Art Manderich. We see the substandard housing and primitive sanitary facilities that created the conditions for disease and disability among workers and their families.
Nearly half of the novel is devoted to Hill’s last years in Utah, his humiliation in a music store when he tries to get a love song published, his arrest, his unwillingness to produce his alibi and stubborn insistence upon a new trial. And indeed, the eyewitnesses were unsure of their identification and there were other irregularities in the trial. Hill is portrayed as a martyr for labor. We are never quite sure whether Joe is really protecting the woman over whom he was reputedly wounded, his fellow traveler Otto Applequist, who had his own shadowy pastimes, or whether he really committed the murder but thought the apparent injustice of his execution would better serve the labor cause.
My impression was that Joe Hill was driven by a restless, never in life to be satisfied, anger. Was it really against the capitalist system, or did this personify his capitalist father? What we do know is that he died angry, crying out as his executioners prepared to fire:
“Fire � go on and fire!�
March 11, 2024
Like others, I was expecting this novelized version of Joe Hill's life to be a good fit with my interests. I've read Stegner novels and enjoyed his writing, I have a background knowledge of Joe Hill and his life, I used to work with IWW organizers back in the day (people who were there when they recovered Hill's ashes from the FBI!)... I mean I should have been able to connect with this novel on so many levels.
Instead it was a slow moving and flat slab of text that just bored me to distraction.
My best guess is that Stegner found himself unable to connect with his own character. Joe Hill didn't leave much of a trail of documents describing his life, work, and travels until he landed in the Salt Lake City jail on trial. Perhaps Stegner didn't anchor his novel in that documented period of Hill's life because what he wanted was a portrait of radicalism, an evolution of Hill from a disaffected drifter with a talent for catchy lyrics into a willing martyr for the cause of unionism.
Thing is, Stegner had already convinced himself that Hill was correctly convicted of murder. Around the time this novel was published, Stegner was also publishing articles arguing that - even in the absence of actual evidence - circumstances argued that Joe Hill did kill that man. His trial may have been a farce, his execution a perfect articulation of the merciless system of bosses, the cheerful willingness of Hill to assume his martyrdom... but Stegner, knowing that Hill was guilty of a selfish crime, tried to play up this aspect of Joe Hill becoming a Worker's Saint on the back of his execution for a venal crime.
So he makes Joe a distant, calculating, and ultimately selfish man. He has a good heart mostly, and is a true believer in the cause freeing workers from the oppression of the bosses, but there is a narrative need to also include a brute in the mix. Stegner doesn't show much imagination in this regard. The Brute Joe Hill emerges without much reason, leads Hill into doing something where he himself is a dispassionate witness... and so we are left with a portrait of Hill that has more in common with a schizoid than a passionate advocate of worker solidarity.
In the end, it's the utter void of motive, of connection, that pushes me away from this novel. The novel is episodic, and almost requires that you already know something of worker conditions, the IWW patois, and politics of the period to track just what the hell is going on. It's simply too much work for too little reward in my view.
It's very readable in composition, lyrical even, but as a portrait of Joe Hill, it's flat and featureless. It tells you nothing and has no deeper insights or lessons for the reader. Disappointing.
Instead it was a slow moving and flat slab of text that just bored me to distraction.
My best guess is that Stegner found himself unable to connect with his own character. Joe Hill didn't leave much of a trail of documents describing his life, work, and travels until he landed in the Salt Lake City jail on trial. Perhaps Stegner didn't anchor his novel in that documented period of Hill's life because what he wanted was a portrait of radicalism, an evolution of Hill from a disaffected drifter with a talent for catchy lyrics into a willing martyr for the cause of unionism.
Thing is, Stegner had already convinced himself that Hill was correctly convicted of murder. Around the time this novel was published, Stegner was also publishing articles arguing that - even in the absence of actual evidence - circumstances argued that Joe Hill did kill that man. His trial may have been a farce, his execution a perfect articulation of the merciless system of bosses, the cheerful willingness of Hill to assume his martyrdom... but Stegner, knowing that Hill was guilty of a selfish crime, tried to play up this aspect of Joe Hill becoming a Worker's Saint on the back of his execution for a venal crime.
So he makes Joe a distant, calculating, and ultimately selfish man. He has a good heart mostly, and is a true believer in the cause freeing workers from the oppression of the bosses, but there is a narrative need to also include a brute in the mix. Stegner doesn't show much imagination in this regard. The Brute Joe Hill emerges without much reason, leads Hill into doing something where he himself is a dispassionate witness... and so we are left with a portrait of Hill that has more in common with a schizoid than a passionate advocate of worker solidarity.
In the end, it's the utter void of motive, of connection, that pushes me away from this novel. The novel is episodic, and almost requires that you already know something of worker conditions, the IWW patois, and politics of the period to track just what the hell is going on. It's simply too much work for too little reward in my view.
It's very readable in composition, lyrical even, but as a portrait of Joe Hill, it's flat and featureless. It tells you nothing and has no deeper insights or lessons for the reader. Disappointing.
August 2, 2011
This was the third book I have read recently that speaks about the violent social upheaval in the 1910s surrounding the start of the labor movement. Interesting to see how unions emerged and then have largely disappeared in 100 years. In the process, I also learned that my mother’s assisted living tablemate is the niece of famous Wobbly martyr, Wesley Everest, who was lynched in Centralia, WA in 1919 following a Veterans Day clash with American Legionnaires. I think I have now read all of Stegner's books.
May 5, 2019
3 1/2 stars
December 29, 2020
Normally, I don't go in for "fictionalized" real people, but this book was worth it. Stegner is, of course, a brilliant writer, and reading was a joy. But more than that, in the current climate, where we are demonizing "socialism" in social media and in the political world, it was a great time to read about a real socialist, someone who didn't believe that it was okay for all the wealth to be used against the people who were doing the work.
Joe Hill makes the case, over and over, that people on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum do not help themselves by giving power over to the people who exploit them, and yet they are so beaten down that they don't know what kind of power they could wield if they would "organize." It boggles the minds. Why do we keep working against our own best interests in the name of the status quo?
As for Hill's guilt or innocence, well, I'll leave that to others to parse out. The best parts of this book were not Hill's fight for justice, but the parts where he worked for his vision.
Joe Hill makes the case, over and over, that people on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum do not help themselves by giving power over to the people who exploit them, and yet they are so beaten down that they don't know what kind of power they could wield if they would "organize." It boggles the minds. Why do we keep working against our own best interests in the name of the status quo?
As for Hill's guilt or innocence, well, I'll leave that to others to parse out. The best parts of this book were not Hill's fight for justice, but the parts where he worked for his vision.
August 31, 2024
My favorite Labor Day read! Inspirational, compelling but troubling.
Has started a new obsession - all those Wobblie songs!!!
Has started a new obsession - all those Wobblie songs!!!
November 12, 2021
I’ve been on a bit of a Wallace Stegner kick this year. I became aware of the Joel Hill in college and was fascinated by the story, but this is the first time I’ve dived in a little deeper. Stegner set out to write a true biography but given the lack of factual material available at the time he chose to write it the story as historical fiction, filling in the gaps as best he could.
Hill was a Swedish immigrant arriving in the US during the industrial revolution. He worked in a variety of labor jobs, before the labor movement gained sufficient power to influence working conditions and pay. Hill was born Joel Hagglund but took the name of Joseph Hillstrom, later shortened to Joe Hill. He became a labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW aka the Wobblies). Hill ends up in Utah working in the Park City Silver King Mine, owned by Thomas Kearns former US Senator. He also worked on the construction of the Eccles Building in my hometown of Ogden. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave" (in which he coined the phrase "pie in the sky"). In Utah he connected with the large LDS Swedish immigrant community, some he knew from Sweden.
In 1914, John Morrison, a Salt Lake City grocer and former policeman, and his son were shot and killed by two men. The same evening, Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman. Hill refused to name the women out of respect for her and her husband. He was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. Following an unsuccessful appeal, political debates, and international calls for clemency from high-profile figures and workers' organizations Hill accepted his fate. Appeals for clemency continued including from Pres. Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and others. Locally, the daughter or LDS Church President, Lorenzo Snow, Univ. of Utah professor and labor activist, Virginia Snow Stephen, advocated for his innocence.
Hours before his execution, Hill wired the IWW General Secretary, "I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning—organize." At 10:00p on Nov. 18. 1914, Hill handed a guard his last poem, titled "My Last Will":
My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don't need to fuss and moan
"Moss does not cling to rolling stone"
My body? Oh, if I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my Last and final Will.
Good Luck to All of you
Joe Hill
The next morning, November 19, 1914 Hill died by firing squad. The city was on high alert following the execution, with rumors of violence by the Wobblies. None of which were true. With his death Hill achieved martyr status and a became a folk hero. Thousands attended his funeral in Salt Lake City, then another in Chicago. Cremation followed. Joe Hill's ashes were distributed in 600 small packets and scattered worldwide.
Stegner believed, based on the historical record then available, that Hill was guilty. Since that time more has come to light, particularly a letter written by the woman he was trying to protect, that supports his version and innocence.
Hill was a Swedish immigrant arriving in the US during the industrial revolution. He worked in a variety of labor jobs, before the labor movement gained sufficient power to influence working conditions and pay. Hill was born Joel Hagglund but took the name of Joseph Hillstrom, later shortened to Joe Hill. He became a labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW aka the Wobblies). Hill ends up in Utah working in the Park City Silver King Mine, owned by Thomas Kearns former US Senator. He also worked on the construction of the Eccles Building in my hometown of Ogden. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave" (in which he coined the phrase "pie in the sky"). In Utah he connected with the large LDS Swedish immigrant community, some he knew from Sweden.
In 1914, John Morrison, a Salt Lake City grocer and former policeman, and his son were shot and killed by two men. The same evening, Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman. Hill refused to name the women out of respect for her and her husband. He was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. Following an unsuccessful appeal, political debates, and international calls for clemency from high-profile figures and workers' organizations Hill accepted his fate. Appeals for clemency continued including from Pres. Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and others. Locally, the daughter or LDS Church President, Lorenzo Snow, Univ. of Utah professor and labor activist, Virginia Snow Stephen, advocated for his innocence.
Hours before his execution, Hill wired the IWW General Secretary, "I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning—organize." At 10:00p on Nov. 18. 1914, Hill handed a guard his last poem, titled "My Last Will":
My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don't need to fuss and moan
"Moss does not cling to rolling stone"
My body? Oh, if I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my Last and final Will.
Good Luck to All of you
Joe Hill
The next morning, November 19, 1914 Hill died by firing squad. The city was on high alert following the execution, with rumors of violence by the Wobblies. None of which were true. With his death Hill achieved martyr status and a became a folk hero. Thousands attended his funeral in Salt Lake City, then another in Chicago. Cremation followed. Joe Hill's ashes were distributed in 600 small packets and scattered worldwide.
Stegner believed, based on the historical record then available, that Hill was guilty. Since that time more has come to light, particularly a letter written by the woman he was trying to protect, that supports his version and innocence.
September 25, 2024
I love Wallace Stegner, and continue to make my way through the body of his work.
"Joe Hill" is a fictional account of the life of Joseph Hillstrom, aka Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant and itinerant laborer who became a legendary figure in the International Workers of the World, a strident labor organization in the early 20th century. Stegner's writing, as always, is terrific, and his portrayal of this complex, fascinating, and compelling man is a fascinating look at the horrific working conditions that existed in many parts of the United States during that period of our history.
It's also a revealing description of the passionate efforts of many ordinary men like Hill who believed that organization of workers was the only way to get the attention of corporate bosses and secure the rights to which they were entitled.
Sadly, Joe Hill was executed by firing squad in Salt Lake City, UT on November 19, 2015 for the murders of two men that he adamantly insisted he did not commit. Because the evidence against Hill was so flimsy, and because Hill refused to testify himself at the trial, there is a strong belief that the crimes were nothing more than a pretense used by the state of Utah to rid itself of a well-known and effective labor agitator. However, while the question of whether Hill was properly convicted may never be answered, one thing that is certain is that Hill became a martyr for the labor movement, and his legend lives on today through the songs, cartoons, and protests he created to draw attention to his cause.
"Joe Hill" is a fictional account of the life of Joseph Hillstrom, aka Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant and itinerant laborer who became a legendary figure in the International Workers of the World, a strident labor organization in the early 20th century. Stegner's writing, as always, is terrific, and his portrayal of this complex, fascinating, and compelling man is a fascinating look at the horrific working conditions that existed in many parts of the United States during that period of our history.
It's also a revealing description of the passionate efforts of many ordinary men like Hill who believed that organization of workers was the only way to get the attention of corporate bosses and secure the rights to which they were entitled.
Sadly, Joe Hill was executed by firing squad in Salt Lake City, UT on November 19, 2015 for the murders of two men that he adamantly insisted he did not commit. Because the evidence against Hill was so flimsy, and because Hill refused to testify himself at the trial, there is a strong belief that the crimes were nothing more than a pretense used by the state of Utah to rid itself of a well-known and effective labor agitator. However, while the question of whether Hill was properly convicted may never be answered, one thing that is certain is that Hill became a martyr for the labor movement, and his legend lives on today through the songs, cartoons, and protests he created to draw attention to his cause.
November 2, 2014
Starting from the twin facts of Stegner being my favorite author and Hill being a figure I am predisposed to like in an organization I have pet sympathies for, this should be my favorite book ever. And I did like it. And no, I don't object on political (and certainly not aesthetic) grounds to Stegner's painting Hill as a complicated, largely unsympathetic character. It is pretty transparent, ultimately, how Stegner feels about Hill (good), and his approach to muddying the waters (through the gradual cementing of the good-natured Lund as the 'eyes' in the narrative), while not particularly subtle, is gentle and welcome.
Unfortunately, the writing is just a little slipshod. The pacing and proportions don't seem very considered; and while there were a couple properly transcendent Stegnerian passages in there, they didn't have the same buoyancy as ones I still remember from Angle of Repose and Wolf Willow, and didn't come as often. I'm a swine accustomed to pearls, I guess.
I just got the overall impression this may have been a dashed-off labor of love that he may not even have intended for publication but just couldn't stop coming back to. Still, something written with that impulse is definitely something I'm going to want to read--maybe once it has been caringly edited.
Unfortunately, the writing is just a little slipshod. The pacing and proportions don't seem very considered; and while there were a couple properly transcendent Stegnerian passages in there, they didn't have the same buoyancy as ones I still remember from Angle of Repose and Wolf Willow, and didn't come as often. I'm a swine accustomed to pearls, I guess.
I just got the overall impression this may have been a dashed-off labor of love that he may not even have intended for publication but just couldn't stop coming back to. Still, something written with that impulse is definitely something I'm going to want to read--maybe once it has been caringly edited.
January 9, 2008
I read this book because it happened to be on the must-read list of my favorite band at the time - Rage Against the Machine. Yes, I will concede that it was an arguably poor reason to read the book, but this book will be forever in my list of favorites. The book is the fictional account of the life and times of Joe Hill - famous union organizer and songwriter. The book gives such a human and ultimately relatable voice to its hero. In this book, Joe is portrayed as a reluctant leader struggling with his own personal demons and sense of self. Amidst a colorful tapestry of fellow workers, Joe Hill is revealed as man who is forced to come to terms with his own fallibility and the realization that no man is every really saved from himself.
March 13, 2012
This is a fictionalized biography of Joseph Hillstrom, aka Joe Hill, of the Industrial Workers of the World. I'd read a straight biography years before--a gift from my brother, Fin. This, while much more highly interpretative, is an interesting supplement to the historical facts, a very well-written one.
August 6, 2011
Good early history of Utah, and the radical labor movement. A lot about his time on death row and execution- may have inspired Norman Mailer in his "Executioner's Song", about another Utah execution.
April 18, 2009
Beautiful, complicated insight into the early 1900's labor movement and the psychology of a "voice of the movement".
July 22, 2022
Wallace Stegner, perhaps attracted to the "Wobbly Bard" Joe Hill as a fellow bard and keen social observer, depicts in this work of historical fiction (more historical than fiction I think) American labor as it once was. It's a wonderful dialectic, not so much between the left and the right, but between violent extremism (exemplified here by the International Workers of the World (IWW) union) and Christian moderation. The result is profound.
My favorite quotes / passages:
--"The sense of moral pressure behind Lund's friendliness made him mad. The feeling that he was being judged and good-naturedly forgiven made him mad." pg. 35
--"Suppose just once, he said to Joe Hillstrom's thick contentious skull, that men tried to whittle their world into change and progress instead of blasting it. Suppose we didn't try to blast them out and burn them and kill them but whittled at them, replacing evil with lesser evil, forcing a concession here and an improvement there and substituting for good a greater good. Suppose we tried overcoming the old sins that have been with us since Adam, and have never left us because we have always elected in our hostility and eagerness and ignorance to fight fire with fire, violence with violence, oppression with oppression? Suppose you fought evil and injustice with your whole might but refused to adopt their methods? Would any more, in the long run, die? Don't you know that violence is unslaked lime that burns the hands throwing it as well as the flesh it is thrown upon?
You apostle of hostility and rebellion, I could read you a sermon in brotherly interdependence, I could show you how you and I are both everybody's servant and everybody's master, I could demonstrate to you that your way of righting wrongs may cure these wrongs but will surely create others. I could be eloquent to show you that there is no way but the way of peace. You sneer at peace, but I could show you that peace is not quietude, not meekness, not weakness, not fear. It need no more accept current evils than you and your fellows in the violent crusade. It doesn't even demand what Christianity has been demanding for centuries. It doesn't demand love, necessarily. It demands only reasonable co-operation, for which men have a genius when they try.
All the arts are arts of peace. Don't give me your Jack London Darwinism and your philosophy of progress by class war. Talk to me about class peace and I'll talk to you. Come to me as a man and I'll talk to you. But don't come to me as a partisan with bloody hands and talk about the cleansing and purifying that arises from violence. A partisan is no man any more, he is a man whittled to a sharp point, every humane quality in him, all his compassion and talent and intelligence and common sense and sense of justice pared away in the interest of striking power. The partisan is hooded like a hawk, kept on the wrist at all times except when the quarry is flushed, except when there is enemy blood to let." pp. 185 - 186
--"Was it disloyal to believe that almost any man was capable of almost any mistake or crime if the circumstances shoved him that way? Was it unfriendly to know that a friend was not perfect and incorruptible, but sadly human, and to like him in spite of the weaknesses he had: the profound inward hostility that made him strike out in retaliation, the fits of self-pity and self-justification, the pride and vanity, the latent violence, the great vague ambitions? Did it lessen Christ's love for Peter to know that on his last night Peter would deny him thrice? Would it change his feelings about Joe to know for certain that Joe was guilty?" pp. 288-289
My favorite quotes / passages:
--"The sense of moral pressure behind Lund's friendliness made him mad. The feeling that he was being judged and good-naturedly forgiven made him mad." pg. 35
--"Suppose just once, he said to Joe Hillstrom's thick contentious skull, that men tried to whittle their world into change and progress instead of blasting it. Suppose we didn't try to blast them out and burn them and kill them but whittled at them, replacing evil with lesser evil, forcing a concession here and an improvement there and substituting for good a greater good. Suppose we tried overcoming the old sins that have been with us since Adam, and have never left us because we have always elected in our hostility and eagerness and ignorance to fight fire with fire, violence with violence, oppression with oppression? Suppose you fought evil and injustice with your whole might but refused to adopt their methods? Would any more, in the long run, die? Don't you know that violence is unslaked lime that burns the hands throwing it as well as the flesh it is thrown upon?
You apostle of hostility and rebellion, I could read you a sermon in brotherly interdependence, I could show you how you and I are both everybody's servant and everybody's master, I could demonstrate to you that your way of righting wrongs may cure these wrongs but will surely create others. I could be eloquent to show you that there is no way but the way of peace. You sneer at peace, but I could show you that peace is not quietude, not meekness, not weakness, not fear. It need no more accept current evils than you and your fellows in the violent crusade. It doesn't even demand what Christianity has been demanding for centuries. It doesn't demand love, necessarily. It demands only reasonable co-operation, for which men have a genius when they try.
All the arts are arts of peace. Don't give me your Jack London Darwinism and your philosophy of progress by class war. Talk to me about class peace and I'll talk to you. Come to me as a man and I'll talk to you. But don't come to me as a partisan with bloody hands and talk about the cleansing and purifying that arises from violence. A partisan is no man any more, he is a man whittled to a sharp point, every humane quality in him, all his compassion and talent and intelligence and common sense and sense of justice pared away in the interest of striking power. The partisan is hooded like a hawk, kept on the wrist at all times except when the quarry is flushed, except when there is enemy blood to let." pp. 185 - 186
--"Was it disloyal to believe that almost any man was capable of almost any mistake or crime if the circumstances shoved him that way? Was it unfriendly to know that a friend was not perfect and incorruptible, but sadly human, and to like him in spite of the weaknesses he had: the profound inward hostility that made him strike out in retaliation, the fits of self-pity and self-justification, the pride and vanity, the latent violence, the great vague ambitions? Did it lessen Christ's love for Peter to know that on his last night Peter would deny him thrice? Would it change his feelings about Joe to know for certain that Joe was guilty?" pp. 288-289
August 5, 2022
Book 20 of 2022: Joe Hill - A Biographical Novel by Wallace Stegner.
This novel is a fictional account of the last few years of Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom), the Swedish-American labor activist who was executed by the State of Utah for a murder that he likely did not commit in November 1915. Hill was also an artist and poet who used his talents in the service of the One Big Union, the International Workers of the World. My only familiarity with the "Wobblies" (supposedly due to Chinese laborers unable to pronounce the initials of the IWW) was in Washington State history in high school covering the 1919 Armistice Day Centralia riots (""massacre").
The novel is in Stegner's trend of writing fiction based on his own (ex., Big Rock Candy Mountain) and others (ex., Angle of Repose) lives. The novel covers HIll's life from Seattle in 1910 to his execution in Salt Lake City in 1915. The novel is bookended by the scattering of some of his ashes in Seattle in May 1916. It covers his interaction with others doing labor organizing in the West, some with sabotage and violence. The events are real, most of the people are real...but obviously the dialog and thoughts of the various characters are fiction (even for whatever amount they are based on existing historical record).
I had not heard of Joe Hill before I read this novel, loaned to me by the FB friend Jim Hanson. Reading the book, I was aware of the accusations of plagiarism of Angle of Repose. Like Angle, Stegner quotes long passages of what Hill had actually written (his songs, his poems, and his writing on his capital case). For me, the style of this novel was very similar to Angle and alleviated any concern I had that he plagiarized the letters and writings of Mary Hallock Foote. It was a style that he used in this novel and his semi-autobiographical novels.
From the novel's point of view, Joe Hill's almost non-existent alibi for the murders of John Morrison and his son (he was shot over a woman), is given credence by indicating that Hill was involved in a robbery that night, but not of the Morrisons. He likely used the murder conviction and execution as a means to become a martyr for the IWW, one last act of activism for the movement. More recent research indicates that an early police suspect (Franz Wilson) was the likely murder.
I would recommend this novel.
This novel is a fictional account of the last few years of Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom), the Swedish-American labor activist who was executed by the State of Utah for a murder that he likely did not commit in November 1915. Hill was also an artist and poet who used his talents in the service of the One Big Union, the International Workers of the World. My only familiarity with the "Wobblies" (supposedly due to Chinese laborers unable to pronounce the initials of the IWW) was in Washington State history in high school covering the 1919 Armistice Day Centralia riots (""massacre").
The novel is in Stegner's trend of writing fiction based on his own (ex., Big Rock Candy Mountain) and others (ex., Angle of Repose) lives. The novel covers HIll's life from Seattle in 1910 to his execution in Salt Lake City in 1915. The novel is bookended by the scattering of some of his ashes in Seattle in May 1916. It covers his interaction with others doing labor organizing in the West, some with sabotage and violence. The events are real, most of the people are real...but obviously the dialog and thoughts of the various characters are fiction (even for whatever amount they are based on existing historical record).
I had not heard of Joe Hill before I read this novel, loaned to me by the FB friend Jim Hanson. Reading the book, I was aware of the accusations of plagiarism of Angle of Repose. Like Angle, Stegner quotes long passages of what Hill had actually written (his songs, his poems, and his writing on his capital case). For me, the style of this novel was very similar to Angle and alleviated any concern I had that he plagiarized the letters and writings of Mary Hallock Foote. It was a style that he used in this novel and his semi-autobiographical novels.
From the novel's point of view, Joe Hill's almost non-existent alibi for the murders of John Morrison and his son (he was shot over a woman), is given credence by indicating that Hill was involved in a robbery that night, but not of the Morrisons. He likely used the murder conviction and execution as a means to become a martyr for the IWW, one last act of activism for the movement. More recent research indicates that an early police suspect (Franz Wilson) was the likely murder.
I would recommend this novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2021
Let me start by saying that the writing in this book is descriptive and beautiful - also I (again) learned more about the Wobbly labor movement in the beginning of the 20th century - and the theme of watching a person go from activist to violent anarchist in support of a cause struck a chord especially in our current times. Also I have loved Wallace Stegner as an author so I had such high hopes for this fictional biography for the main character's life and for the times of the labor movement. Unfortunately, though, I found that this book dragged and it took me forever to read. I wanted to find out what would happen in the end but getting there was a challenge. Most of the book is from the viewpoint of Joe Hill - the rww songsmith who rallies the workers with songs and art work and comes to truly believe in the cause even as it devolves into violence and he becomes their martyr through a clash with the law - undeserved or deserved. But my favorite character was Lund - a missionary who is trying to help the downtrodden but isn't a member of the labor group itself. I found myself liking him while Joe Hill was more of an unknown. Lund was the light to Joe Hill's dark as more and more bad things happened as the book went along. At times - though I wanted to learn about the Wobbly movement - there was too much of the behind the scenes which slowed the story. Maybe I would have liked this more at a time I could appreciate the in depth storytelling but most of the time struggled to pay attention.
September 5, 2020
Stegner's historical novel concerning Joe Hill is a sympathetic look at the radical labor movement of the first decade of the 20th century, and, at the same time, a complex and nuanced study of Joe Hill(strom) himself. In fact, it is a story of just how Joe Hillstrom, the Swedish immigrant, became the legendary Joe Hill, a hero of popular culture down to the present day. Was Hillstrom guilty of the robbery and murder for which he was executed in 1915? Probably, although Stegner leaves the question, however improbably, open. At least no evidence ever surfaced of the mysterious woman Joe claimed he was with when he was wounded by a bullet, as it just so happens, on the same evening the intruder and murderer at the downtown Salt Lake store was also wounded and fled the scene. Hill, it seems, never wavered from his hatred of capitalist enterprise, so many of his decisions as he stood trial and then waited through appeals on death row seems to have been shaped by loyalty to the IWW and to his sense of the legend that was growing around him. Stegner is a writer of flawless technique, who intimately knows the world in which this story takes place. It was a pleasure to read this book, despite the grave seriousness of so much of the story Stegner tells.
January 19, 2019
I borrowed the earlier version of this biographical novel from my local university library which was entitled, THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE. It came out in 1950, about 35 years after Joe Hill, a labor organizer for the Wobblies, or IWW, was shot by a firing squad in Salt Lake City. Joe Hill, immigrated from Sweden and mainly wrote songs and drew cartoons for the movement. The events in the book take place in the 5 years before his death. I thought it told his story well. A secondary character in the book is a Lutheran pastor, Lund, who when Hill is in San Pedro, CA and visiting his seaman's mission, tries to draw him into this type of work. Hill rejects it but as he nears death, he asks Lund to stay with him. Lund becomes a more major character at the end of the book. I liked the book, but sometimes found it somewhat slow.
March 27, 2021
This was an outstanding book written by the inimitable Wallace Stegner. While "Crossing to Safety" is still my favorite book of his, and is in my top ten list, this book was a joy to read. It's a fictionalized and literary biography of Joe Hill, the legendary IWW organizer and propagandist. The story itself is an interesting one, as was the life of the subject. Stegner goes much further than a biographer though by putting us into the lives and minds of his subject as well as his close associates. He uses the liberties of fiction, and his incredible craft as a writer to put us into the time and place in a much more realistic, personal, and human way than a traditional biography would. Stegner wrote this relatively early in his career, but he is already a master of the form. It was a joy to read this.
September 26, 2022
Another Stegner knock-out. After finishing, I read all about the Wikipedia Joe Hill, as this book took some artistic interpretation with his life, listened to a few of his songs on YouTube, and I want to know everything about the labor unions now. I am filled with that fine feeling of having just read a work of intense beauty, mystery, literary genius, that post-Stegner bliss of being completely filled, and never wanting to come down off his literary high. A great read for the month of Labor Day! I love how Stegner built this book, leaving the gaping holes in Hill's life between chapters, keeping you in the dark until the final scattering of Hill's ashes, he captured so perfectly the making of a martyr. We are left with only Joe Hill, martyr, blind to the life of the enigmatic Joe Hillstrom.
January 29, 2024
A biographical novel is such a fascinating concept to me—to explicitly take the real historical facts of a figure’s life but transpose the author’s interpretation of how those events must have felt is inherently fraught, and risks having a reader conflate reality with the work of fiction. That’s especially true for a figure whose life is shrouded in mystery, such as Joe Hill. Stegner obviously believed he was guilty, which seems to have been a reasonable enough assumption in the 1940s but seems less likely now. But Stegner’s Joe Hill, whether accurate or not, is a fascinating character, full of internal contradictions. The farther he is from the real Joe Hill, the more impressive Stegner’s creation arguably becomes. The prose is also beautiful, regularly allowing me to imagine myself wherever Hill found himself.
April 5, 2020
4.5 out of 5, rounded up. It's not a full-throated 5 stars as I had to look up some of the IWW slang (like scissorbills) to completely immerse myself in the book. Like every other Stegner book I've ever read, this one takes a bit to get into as the reader needs to get into Stegner's style and rhythm. Once I did (by about page 75), I was struck by how cinematic this book is. By that I mean that if someone wanted to make a movie about Joe Hill, Stegner set up what is in each scene, including behaviors and character development, and a talented filmmaker could easily use this book as a road map. I knew nothing about Joe Hill, and had only a superficial knowledge of the labor movement and the Wobblies. This put it all very vividly into my memory.
September 10, 2023
I was all set to appreciate this book. With an interest in labor history, an interest in people with a mission, and knowledge that Wallace Stegner is a good writer, I thought that I couldn’t not like this book. But the characters were not very likable or accessible. They were stereotypical. Joe Hill’s obstinate and unwillingness to participate in a defense at trial was hard to believe. I’m so pleased to be finished with this book and disappointed that it was not better. I give it two stars because of the effort and because I learned something about the IWW, Aalt Lake City, and migrant labor in the early 1900s.
August 23, 2023
I appreciate Stegner’s imaginative fictionalization of Joe Hill’s life. It makes for a compelling subject and one that can be at times deeply personal and at others, offer real insight into the story of labor, culture, and business in the United States. For my part, I found Stegner’s language simultaneously stilted and overwrought and his storytelling plodding and muddy. In retrospect, I would have preferred a more historically accurate biography or a retelling of key events of the early years of the Wobblies.
January 23, 2025
This fictional account got me interested in Joe’s life and the IWW. I’d wish for a bit more background on exactly what Joe was fighting against, why that life was so unfair, but Stegner did a good job of making the character real. I assume it’s as close to reality as can be, just filling in the blanks that naturally occur with a life like Joe’s.
Not really a page turner, nor is it too eye-opening. Joe himself is obviously very imperfect, but it got me curious to know more, especially about the IWW.
Not really a page turner, nor is it too eye-opening. Joe himself is obviously very imperfect, but it got me curious to know more, especially about the IWW.
November 27, 2017
Not a biography, but a fill in the blanks biographical novel about one of the more interesting characters in Utah history (unknown to most Utahns but memorialized on a mural on the side of Ken Sanders Rare Bookstore), Stephen King's son's namesake, labor organizer, songwriter, and convicted murderer Joe Hill. Stegner leaves mush of the real life mystery mysterious, but leaves the characters a bit flat. Good, not great.
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