Itinerant worker, union organizer, labor agitator, cartoonist, poet, musician, composer—murdered by the judiciary in collusion with the mine owners who wished to silence his songs. They killed a man but gave birth to a legend.

— Artist Carlos Cortez, from his
famous woodcut of Joe Hill

The last weekend of August 2011 we had an unusual opportunity to honor Joe Hill and what he stands for. We at Bread and Roses Workers’ Cultural Center in Denver held two days of events for that purpose to coincide with the publication of Bill Adler’s exhaustive and dramatic new biography, The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon.

We are looking forward to commemmorating th 100th anniversary of Joe’s execution in 2015. If you would like to participate in any capacity, send an e-mail to info@workersbreadandroses.org.

If you have something to add to the list below, please contact us at the above email address.

Art

• Joe Hill by M. Baer, 1918, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University
  • The library has several other items, including Hill’s papers from Sweden, some of his artwork, photographs of him and his funeral, etc.
• Joe Hill by Carlos Cortez (1923–2005); see this tribute to Cortez at Rebel Graphics
  • Also available as a T shirt from Bread and Roses Workers’ Cultural Center
• Songs of Joe Hill Series by Dylan Miner, including “Mr. Block,” “There Is Power in the Union,” and “Rebel Girl”; also a double portrait of Joe Hill and Ricardo Flores Magón

While the People’s Songs organization may be forgotten to many, several of its members are household names: Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Earl Robinson, Ronnie Gilbert, Burl Ives, Alan Lomax. The image above comes from the Labor Arts virtual museum.

Film and Television

• Joe Hill, a documentary directed by Ken Verdoia
• Joe Hill (aka The Ballad of Joe Hill), a feature film directed by Bo Wilderberg
• “The Preacher and the Slave: ‘You’ll get pie in the sky when you die’” by Ed Ward, for the PBS documentary Get Up Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest
• The Return of Joe Hill, a musical documentary by Eric Scholl
  • Clips from the documentary

History

• The American Folklife Center: “A Brief List of References to Joe Hill, the Person and the Song”
• Holt Labor Library: bibliography and links to websites and archives
• Joe Hill Project at the University of Utah contains information about the case against Joe Hill, including contemporary newspaper transcripts, biographical sketches, location and historical photographs, and even a map—but beware of many errors (e.g., crediting “Joe Hill” composer Earl Robinson with penning “Solidarity Forever”)
• J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, has much material, including digital (watermarked) photographs and articles

Literature

• A Coffin Covered in Roses: Poems for Joe Hill by Christopher Leibow
• The Case of Joe Hill: The Story of the Trial, the Mass Defence Campaign, and the Execution of the Famous IWW Poet, Songwriter, and Organizer by Philip S. Foner
• “Joe Hill,” a two-page portrait near the end of Nineteen Nineteen by John Dos Passos, from his trilogy U.S.A.
• Joe Hill: The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture by Franklin Rosemount
• Joe Hill by Gibbs M. Smith, which was the basis for the film by Bo Wilderberg
• The Letters of Joe Hill by Philip S. Foner
• The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon by William M. Adler, to be released in August 2011
• The Preacher and the Slave (reprinted as Joe Hill: A Biographical Novel) by Wallace Stegner
• The Wild, Wild Wobblies by Stewart Holbrook

Music – Songs by Joe Hill

• Don’t Mourn—Organize!: Songs of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill by various artists
  • See also a PDF of the CD booklet
  • Billy Bragg covers the Phil Ochs song listed below
• Joe Hills sånger: The complete Joe Hill Song Book (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Prisma, 1969)
• I Dreamed I Heard Joe Hill Last Night: A Century of IWW Songs by John Pietaro & The Flames of Discontent
• IWW Songs, available from Bread and Roses, containing words and music to several songs by Joe Hill
• Labor Notes – Song of the Month: “Workers of the World Awaken / There’s Power in a Union” by Joe Hill
• The Songs of Joe Hill by Joe Glazer
  • See also a PDF of the CD booklet
• To Fan the Flames of Discontent: The Living Songs of Joe Hill and the Wobblies by Jack Herranen & the Ninth Ward Conspiracy
• We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years by Utah Phillips

Music – Inspired by Joe Hill

• “1915” by Anti-Flag, from their album General Strike, describes the death of Joe Hill, and incorporates his last will and “Workers of the World Awaken”
• “Christmas in Washington” by Steve Earle from his album El Corazón, in which he invokes the name of Joe Hill along with Woodie Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Emma Goldman, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King
• “Joe Hill” by Phil Ochs from his album Tape From California
  • Billy Bragg covers this on Don’t Mourn—Organize! mentioned above
• Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Chamber Orchestra, Voices, and Soloist by Wayne Horvitz
• A Select Bibliography produced for the piece by Randy Nelson
• Labor Notes – Song of the Month: “Joe Hill (I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night)” by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson
  • Earl Robinson sings it on his A Walk in the Sun and Other Songs and Ballads; see also a PDF of the CD booklet
  • Joan Baez sings it on her One Day at a Time and, of course, at Woodstock
  • The Dubliners sing it
  • Chumbawamba incorporate the first stanza in “By and By”
  • John McCutcheon performs it at the at the 2008 National Storytelling Festival on his double-CD Untold and also Live at Wolf Trap
  • Tom Morello – The Nightwatchman sings it on Union Town
  • Utah Phillips, Ani DiFranco, and others perform it on their collaboration Fellow Workers; Utah Phillips sings it on his We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years
  • Paul Robeson sings it on his Songs of Free Men, A Paul Robeson Recital
  • Danish band Savage Rose includes “Balladen Om Joe Hill” on their Ild og Frihed (Fire and Freedom)
  • Pete Seeger sings it on his Songs of Struggle and Protest: 1930–1950
  • Sweden’s Satellite Records includes it on Trots...en samling sånger (Despite/Nevertheless… A Collection of Songs)
  • Frank Tovey (aka Fad Gadget) sings it on his Tyranny and the Hired Hand
  • Scott Walker sings it on his The Moviegoer
  • Swedish actor Sven Wollter includes “Balladen Om Joe Hill” on his Sånger från tjugonde seklet (Songs from the Twentieth Century)
  • Sir Willard White sings it on The Paul Robeson Legacy
• “Joe Hill’s Ashes” by Marc Levy, included on Don’t Mourn—Organize! mentioned above
• “Joe Hill’s Ashes” from the CD of the same name, by Otis Gibbs

• Labor Notes – Song of the Month: “Joe Hill’s Last Will” set to music by Ethel Raim
• “Joe Hillstrom” by Woody Guthrie, from American Folksong
• “Joe Hillström 1879–1915” by Among the Oak and Ash
• “November Nineteenth” by John E. Nordquist
• “Paper Heart” by Si Kahn and Charlotte Brody, included on Don’t Mourn—Organize! mentioned above
• “Three Chords and the Truth” by Ry Cooder and Joachim Cooder, from My Name Is Buddy

Music & Video

• Music by and inspired by Joe Hill streams here with visuals

From Barrie Stavis’ The Man Who Never Died, a 2009 production by Association for the Retention of Cultural Heritages (ARCH) at Lafayette’s Harlequin Center for the Performing Arts.

Theater

• The Immigrant, a play by John McCutcheon and Si Kahn
• The Man Who Never Died, a play by Barrie Stavis, based on Hill’s trial

Union Tributes

• AFL–CIO