Save Joe Hill" Postcard Addressed to Utah Governor [William Spry]. Harrisburg, PA to Salt Lake City, UT, September 6, 1915. With original contemporary Joe Hill and Socialist Party ephemera pasted on

[Harrisburg, PA & Salt Lake City, UT]: [n.p.], 1915. Postcard / Ephemera. Very Good. Postcard [3.25" x 5.5"]. Standard one-cent McKinley red-ink United States postal card. Postally used. Heavily customized on the message side with contemporary pasted-on ephemera. Some light age-toning, surface dust soil, and bumping to edges and corners; still structurally sound and bright.

The message side features a large, diagonally pasted newspaper or broadside clipping reading: "Save Joe Hill". The clipping is partially overlaid by five perforated, stamp-like Socialist Party propaganda labels printed by P. Mitchell in Helmetta, N.J., reading "Socialist Party / Workers of the World Unite" with varying slogans (e.g., "The Masters fear Slaves who THINK...", "Socialism is the demand of the WORKERS for more life...", etc.).

The address side features a crisp, circular machine postmark from Harrisburg, PA, dated Sep 6, 11:30 PM, 1915, with wavy cancellation bars over the printed McKinley stamp. Written in a bold, contemporary hand in black ink, the postcard is addressed: "Governor of Utah / Salt Lake City / Utah" A remarkable, handmade piece of political protest mail sent to Utah Governor William Spry during the massive international campaign to stay the execution of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) songwriter and activist Joe Hill (1879-1915). Hill had been convicted of the January 1914 murders of Salt Lake City grocer John G. Morrison and his son in a highly controversial, largely circumstantial trial. This postcard was mailed just days before President Woodrow Wilson made his first official intervention on September 30, requesting a stay of execution from Governor Spry. Following his conviction, Hill was incarcerated at the old Utah State Penitentiary-located in what is now Salt Lake City's Sugar House Park-where he was ultimately executed by a Utah firing squad on November 19, 1915. A monument was only recently dedicated at the park in November 2023 near the former prison site to commemorate Hill's legacy.

After his death, Hill's body was transported by railroad to Chicago for the funeral, held on Thanksgiving Day (November 25, 1915) at the West Side Auditorium in Chicago, Illinois. More than 5,000 people attended the funeral, with some 30,000 more packed in the streets outside the auditorium. Following the services, Joe Hill's body was cremated and, in accordance with his wishes, the ashes divided into hundreds of small envelopes to be shipped and spread far and wide across the world. An iconic figure in the storied history of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Swedish-American "Joe Hill" was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and was also known as Joseph Hillström (1879-1915).

Uniquely hand-assembled, addressed, and postally documented, this postcard represents an exceptionally rare survival of direct protest correspondence that actually reached Governor Spry's desk during the climax of this historic international labor defense campaign.