This collection consists of 17 mounted, black-and-white photographs of deportees during the 1917 Bisbee Deportation.
In the early 20th century, Bisbee, Arizona was the site of several large copper mines. Bisbee was also notoriously anti-union, firing 1200 workers between 1906-1907 for joining unions.
In 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) began a campaign to enroll several hundred miners. The IWW also issued a list of demands to mine owners, including heightened worker safety, an end to discrimination against minority workers, and a flat wage system. When the demands were refused, workers and the IWW organized a strike of nearly 50% of the workforce. On June 26, in retaliation, two anti-union groups (led in part by the Bisbee sheriff) formed a team of vigilantes, donned white armbands, rounded up 1186 workers, and detained them in a local ballpark, giving them the option to give up the strike. Meanwhile, the vigilantes took over the telegraph office to prevent news of the strike or their strikebreaking efforts from getting out.
From the ballpark, the workers were loaded into boxcars and taken 200 miles away to Tres Hermanas, New Mexico. They were abandoned there until July 14, when US troops arrived. The detention in New Mexico continued for several months, during which a federal investigation was conducted. The investigation would eventually find the mine owners responsible for the kidnapping and detention of nearly 1200 miners. Despite this, no individuals were ever convicted.
