Joe Hill (activist)

Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillström, was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. A native Swedish speaker, he learned English during the early 1900s, while working various jobs from New York to San Francisco. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His songs include "The Preacher and the Slave", "The Tramp", "There Is Power in a Union", "The Rebel Girl", and "Casey Jones—the Union Scab", which express the harsh and combative life of itinerant workers, and call for workers to organize their efforts to improve working conditions.

7 October 1879

Born on the same birth day (7 October): A. J. Price • Dylan Baker • Elijah Muhammad • Flying Lotus • Jakaya Kikwete • Leonidas Paraskevopoulos • Linda Griffiths • Michael Hurll • President of Peru • R. Sivagurunathan • Ruslan Nigmatullin • Sebastián Coates • Thomas Keneally • Uncle Dave Macon

Born in the same month (October 1879): Alva B. Adams • B. A. Rolfe • Channing H. Cox • Edward Hennig • Emma Bell Miles • Ernst Mally • Francis Peyton Rous • Franz von Papen • Fritz Haarmann • Huntley Gordon • Jane Darwell • Karel Hašler • Max von Laue • Robert Edwards (artist) • Wallace Stevens • Warner Oland