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): Caesar Rodney • Claud Ashton Jones • Ernest, Margrave of Baden-Durlach • Graeme Ferguson (filmmaker) • Henry A. Wallace • Henry Plumer McIlhenny • Lee Nguyen • Steve Rucker (composer) • Tico Torres

Born in the same month (October 1879): B. A. Rolfe • Channing H. Cox • Emma Bell Miles • Francis Peyton Rous • Franz von Papen • Huntley Gordon • Warner Oland