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Haymarket Square Evidence Re-Analyzed at UT |
| By
Vicki L. Kroll |
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Aug 13, 2003 |
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| Debbie Linn of the Chicago Historical Society holds the lead hemisphere from the Haymarket anarchist trial as, from left, Julie Katz of the society, Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse and Dr. Jeffrey Dunn look at it. |
Researchers at The University of Toledo and Yale University are taking a closer look at two pieces of evidence from the 1886 Haymarket anarchist trial — and adding a new chapter to a controversial piece of history.
“This project will re-analyze physical evidence from the Haymarket anarchist bombing and trial that has, remarkably, survived intact for nearly 120 years,” said Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, UT associate professor and chair of history. “Its purpose is to re-examine one of the landmark trials in American judicial history in light of the ‘new’ facts provided by modern laboratory methods.”
Messer-Kruse and Dr. Jeffrey Dunn, director of the UT Instrumentation Center, recently examined a lead hemisphere that was supposedly smelted and made into a bombshell by Louis Lingg, one of the men convicted and sentenced to death for inciting the bombing in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Later this month, the Yale team will study lead fragments recovered from the body of a slain policeman.
“If it turns out these artifacts match those found in Lingg’s apartment, it would clearly connect at least one of the defendants with the bombing. On the other hand, if they don’t match, it would demonstrate that one of the key pieces of evidence was mishandled or fraudulent,” Messer-Kruse said. “Either way it comes out, we’ll add some facts to a pretty disputed part of history. How often do historians get to do that?”
The Haymarket Square incident occurred in Chicago a few days after nationwide demonstrations and strikes called for an eight-hour workday. Anarchists organized a rally to protest police force used against factory strikers. When police tried to break up the meeting, someone threw a bomb. Seven policemen were killed and more than 50 were injured. Eight were tried as accessories to murder based on their inflammatory speeches at the rally. Seven men were sentenced to death despite their alibis and the fact that the bomber was never identified. Of these, two had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, one (Lingg) committed suicide in his cell, and four were hung the following year.
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| Dr. Pannee Burckel is assisting with the analysis of the artifact. |
“During the state’s case against the eight anarchist defendants, only one piece of physical evidence was introduced. Chemists from a Chicago college were employed by the prosecution to determine the composition of shell fragments recovered from the scene and of unexploded bombs found in Lingg’s tenement,” Messer-Kruse said. “Using the state-of-the-art ‘wet’ methods of the late 19th century, the chemists determined both of these samples had similar and unusual proportions of tin, an impurity rarely found in commercial grades of lead. The prosecution then followed the theory that Lingg and his co-conspirators, in melting and pouring it into hemispheric molds, had created a distinct chemical combination whose ‘fingerprint’ proved their connection to the crime.”
Archivists from the Chicago Historical Society brought the lead hemisphere to campus July 28-29. Enter Dunn, who used a scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive spectrometer to examine the bomb’s chemical composition.
“The instrument is essentially an electron gun that shoots streams of electrons — like an electrical current — onto the sample,” Dunn explained. “All kinds of signals are produced as a result of the interaction between the electron stream and the sample. Some signals can be used to print photos, which are good for looking at topographical features of materials. One of the signals is an X-ray beam, the wavelength of which is characteristic of an element, and the intensity of which is proportional to the concentration of the element. So the technique enables you to photograph something and get information on its elemental composition. The really nice thing is that it’s non-destructive, which is important for artifacts.”
Assisting Dunn with analysis is Dr. Pannee Burckel, chemical instrumentation specialist. “We’re analyzing this artifact to determine its composition and then we’ll compare it to the findings of the Yale researchers and see if these match what was found in the suspect’s basement,” Dunn said. “The chemists who did the original analysis were only able to determine the tin content accurately, although they did detect small quantities of zinc, antimony, iron and copper. Lead was the main component. What we’re trying to do is analyze these other components accurately. The more matches found, the more confident we are that there is a link between the materials found in Lingg’s tenement and the bomb fragments at the crime scene. We’re re-examining what went on forensically about 110 years ago.”
“We plan to present our results in scholarly and popular journals, and a book that I’m working on that re-examines the entire trial,” Messer-Kruse said.
Messer-Kruse started this project, which is funded in part by the Office of Research Small Grant Award, two years ago. “A textbook covered the episode and said no evidence was introduced connecting the defendants to the bombing. One student raised her hand and wanted to know if no evidence was introduced, what did they do for four weeks at the trial? I said that was a good question and I would look into it,” he said. “The more I looked into it, the more evidence I found, culminating with the fact that some of the physical evidence still exists.”
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