"OUR MARTYR" 1910 FUND RAISER LAPEL STUD SHOWS UNION MAN SHOT BY "NEGRO STRIKE-BREAKER" IN OHIO.
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Winning Bid:
$118.00
(Includes 18% Buyer's Premium)
Bidding Ended:
Tuesday, July 11, 2017 10:00:00 PM (20 Minute Clock Begins At Tuesday, July 11, 2017 10:00:00 PM)
Item Description
First seen, rare and precisely documented 7/8" real photo celluloid with lapel stud reverse, although stud back is flattened against the tin back of the celluloid so it is no longer attachable. Celluloid shows real photo of a man well-known in the West Virginia and eastern Ohio area as a football star of the Wheeling Tigers. He is in football style jersey with the letters "B.A.C." across the chest. Surrounding text is "Our Martyr Bro. Sol. Edwards". On his left and right lower cheeks and just below his chin are three areas 1/16 to 1/8" in diameter with slight surface wear including three pinpoint indents through the celluloid that barely show as white pinpoint dots. There are tiny traces of additional but very trivial wear. The celluloid still displays beautifully in deep sepia with the damage only obvious on very close inspection. Button comes with two photocopies from 1910 newspapers that explain the original event as well as why this lapel stud was produced. The event description comes from The Pittsburgh Press of March 14, 1910. Early that morning a group of seven strikers from an area metal-working plant in Martin's Ferry, Ohio attacked a black man (and his wife) who were on the way to a train depot to reach his job as a (non-union) bricklayer in Steubenville, Ohio. The black man, Emanuel Robinson, suffered lacerations and bruises but was armed and shot Sol Edwards (who later died) while Mrs. Robinson, also injured, used a knife to wound a second attacker, all of whom retreated taking Edwards to the hospital. Whatever happened to Robinson and his wife is unknown. The purpose: Two months later in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the national convention, with only 150 delegates, of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Tin and Steel Workers of America met. The photocopy from the May 4, 1910 Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel article on the convention concludes with this paragraph: "Many of the delegates are wearing the Sol Edwards memorial buttons, from the sale of which it is proposed to erect a monument to Edwards, at Martin's Ferry, Ohio. During March of this year Edwards was shot down by a negro strike-breaker at Martin's Ferry, and the buttons are inscribed 'Our Martyr, Brother Sol Edwards'". An amazing artifact of the union vs non-union and white vs. black conflicts of the era.
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