PA State Archives Hours, Directions, & Fees Research Topics Online Catalog Land Records

 

 

 


Manuscript Group 284
LEROY HORLACHER PAPERS
1918-1925 & undated
.5 cu. ft.


Leroy Horlacher (b. 1894 - d. ?) was a conscientious objector during World War I who was imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and Alcatraz, California from 1918 through 1920. He was also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or the Wobblies) from 1915 to 1921. Under the leadership of William Haywood, the I.W.W. called for all workers, whether skilled and unskilled alike, to unite into a single union. Members of the I.W.W. found themselves prime targets of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sabotage and Sedition Acts passed in 1918. Amidst the ensuing 11,500 arrests of socialists and "Wobblies," William Haywood was forced to flee to the Soviet Union in order to avoid a long imprisonment.

The Horlacher papers include correspondence, photographs, and miscellaneous materials relating to the Industrial Workers of the World. The correspondence is mainly from his aunt, Mrs. Anna Evans, of Philadelphia, who tried to get him released from prison, and who wrote to the Committee of Friends of Conscientious Objectors, the National Civil Liberties Bureau, and the American Civil Liberties Union in 1919. Other correspondence is from sympathetic persons, some in a similar situation. The photographs and miscellaneous materials document barracks life, while the remaining pamphlets, poems, and a newspaper article relate to the I.W.W.




PA State Archives Hours, Directions, & Fees Research Topics Online Catalog Land Records