Author: Ben Kite

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Collective Lives/Collective Struggles: The Charter Members of the Debs Foundation

Thanks to many hours of research by Board member Tim Kelley, we now have a history of the founding members of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation, entitled “Collective Lives/Collective Struggles”. This labor of love chronicles not only the beginnings of the Foundation but details about the lives of its charter members.

Many thanks to Tim Kelley and all those who supported his research. Without this effort, much of this information would be lost in the sands of time.

The entire history is available as PDF document for download! Please share and enjoy!

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Debs/Pullman Festival in Woodstock, IL – November 2nd and 3rd

Woodstock Celebrates, Inc. is hosting a Eugene V. Debs/George Pullman festival in Woodstock on Saturday and Sunday, 2 and 3 November.  All events will be free to the public, who would be encouraged to donate for the specific purpose of renovating Old McHenry County Jail. On Saturday morning at 10, the library will show “The Gilded Age,” a recent documentary about the 1880-1896 social-industrial crisis.  On Sunday morning at noon, Steve Aavang will guide a walking tour of Woodstock sites associated with Debs and his jailer/friend, Sheriff George Eckert.  Speakers on Debs and Pullman will present at Stage Left from 2 to 5 PM on both days, and the bookstore will host a signing by Ernest Freeberg of his book on Debs in 1919. Also on both Saturday and Sunday, the Old Court House will exhibit Debs Foundation material from 11 AM to 5 PM, and the library will showcase Pullman material from the Illinois Railway Museum from 1 PM to closing.  All day on both days, Ethereal Confections will offer to patrons cocktails popular in the 1890s through 1919.

Event updates will be posted on https://www.facebook.com/WoodstockCelebratesInc/.

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Article on Morahns’ Debs Research by Tribune Star’s Mark Bennett

Our own Micki and John Morahn’s Debs research was covered in a recent issue of the Terre Haute Tribune Star:

“Morahn retold that story and others last month, building a case for a more realistic picture of Kate, wife of the Terre Haute-born activist whose exploits earned him a spot on Life Magazine’s list of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Americans nearly 75 years after his death. Morahn saw the lack of an in-depth study of Mrs. Debs as a void in the otherwise voluminous history of Mr. Debs. So, four years ago, Morahn and her husband, John, began compiling biographical information about Kate.”

Read more on the Tribune-Star Website

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Debs in Our Voices: a Community Reading

Mayor Proclaims June 16 “Debs Day” in Terre Haute

June 16, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Eugene V. Debs’ most famous speech in Canton, Ohio and the Debs Foundation of Terre Haute is commemorating the date by offering the public an opportunity to read the speech in their own voices from the porch of the Debs Home and Museum at 451 North 8th Street, Terre Haute. Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett has declared the day “Eugene V. Debs Day” in the city.

Events will begin at 10 am with tours of the Debs home and a Labor History Tour of Terre Haute marking significant places in Terre Haute and Debs history which made the city a mecca for working class people and their cause. Pre-registration for the Labor tour can be found here. The tour will conclude at the Debs grave site in Highland Lawn cemetery in Terre Haute with a short memorial service at 11:30 am.

The 10am tour is now full, but in response to popular demand, a second tour has been scheduled from 1pm until 3pm. Registration is through the form above.

From noon until 4, visitors to the home will be invited to read portions of Debs’ Canton speech from the porch and to gather in the back yard to share Debs stories and inspiration. All the events are free and open to the public.

Eugene V. Debs was born and raised in Terre Haute and served as City Clerk, as well as Representative to the Indiana Legislature. He helped establish the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, a national union based in Terre Haute and was a founder of the American Railway Union, which led to a 6-month sentence for his leadership of the Pullman Strike in 1894. He embraced the ideals of Socialism and helped found The American Socialist Party and was the party’s Presidential Candidate five times, the last time running from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary where he was serving a 10 year sentence for his Canton speech. He received almost a million votes in 1920 while incarcerated.

Although not all his neighbors agreed with his politics, the town embraced its most famous son. When he was released from prison, over 25,000 of his friends and neighbors greeted his return to Terre Haute. He was a friend to all, and his kindness was universally admired.

Come join the Eugene V. Debs Foundation in commemorating Debs and the right to free speech on June 16, 2018.

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Debs Plaque Unveiled in Woodstock

In 1895, following the conclusion of the Pullman Railroad Strike, Eugene Debs served a six months term in the McHenry County Jail located in Woodstock, Illinois. On Saturday, October 21, 2017, a plaque which memorializes the significance of the imprisonment and its impact on the labor movement and the free speech movement in the decades that followed was unveiled at the site of that jail. An enthusiastic group of local citizens and guests from around the MIdwest attended two forums that discussed the strike and its aftermath from a number of perspectives. Representing the Debs Foundation were Dave Rathke, Laurie Beasley and Noel Beasley.

In spite of all the efforts to keep Debs out of history books and popular culture, there continue to be important victories such as has been achieved in Woodstock. A group of local teachers, historians, attorneys and other community activists created Woodstock Celebrates, Inc. to insure the celebration of the town’s local history and then conducted a multi-year campaign to raise funds and secure the placement of the plaque at the Old County Jail. The forums provided excellent opportunities for exchanges of facts and opinions of past events and also on the struggles of workers and progressives in 2017.


A number of the participants in those events have been inspired to focus next on the placement of a plaque in the town of Pullman, Illinois. A short drive south from Chicago’s Loop, Pullman celebrates the noblesse oblige of the Pullman family by conducting tours of the “model company town” that rival a Disney theme park in fantasizing a past that never existed. There is a conscious avoidance of any mention of the strike, the beatings and murders of strikers and the role of the federal government in crushing the strike and sentencing Debs to prison. A struggle to create a monument to Debs and the workers of Pullman will be difficult given the corruption and chaos now rampant in the Illinois state government let alone the hostility of the Trump Fake Department of Labor to unions. But it is battles like this that provide a critically important opportunity to remind everyone of the “other history” of our country.