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Tom Mooney collection, 1916-1942.
MANUSCRIPT3901
Collection Overview
Title:
Tom Mooney collection, 1916-1942Mooney
Creator/Contributor:
Mooney, Thomas J., 1882-1942Abstract:
Correspondence, pamphlets, and documents relating to Tom Mooney's conviction, incarceration, and his eventually successful
attempts at a pardon.
Date:
1916 (issued)Subject:
n-us-caBillings, Warren K -- 1893-1972
Mooney, Rena
Labor movement -- California -- San Francisco -- History
Bombings -- California -- San Francisco
Note:
Thomas J. Mooney was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 8, 1882. His father was a coal miner and labor organizer who died
at the age of 36. Mooney held many jobs as an industrial worker, toured Europe (where he learned about socialism), and eventually
settled in San Francisco, where he married Rena Hermann and became known as a militant labor agitator. Mooney, his wife, his
associate Warren K. Billings, and jitney driver Israel Weinberg were arrested after the July 22, 1916 bombing at the Preparedness
Day parade in San Francisco, Billings and Mooney were convicted for the bombing on what was later shown to be perjured testimony
coached by San Francisco's District Attorney and Deputy District Attorney. Billings had been sentenced to life in prison,
and Mooney's death sentence was commuted to life after the intervention of President Woodrow Wilson. Mooney became a martyr
figure for the labor movement while incarcerated, but after his pardon by California Governor Culbert L. Olson in 1939 (and
the release of Billings later that year), his importance waned. In ill health, Mooney died on March 6, 1942.
Mooney.
Inventory available in library; folder level control.
Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.
Type:
biographyPhysical Description:
print
1 manuscript box; 16 1/2 x 13 x 3 1/2 in.
Language:
English
Identifier:
Origin:
CaliforniaCopyright Note:
Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.