MARQUETTE, Mich.—The Beaumier Upper Peninsula Heritage Center is hosting a traveling exhibition titled “Tragedy and Tumult: Michigan’s 1913-14 Copper Strike” through Friday, Sept. 27, in 105 Cohodas Hall at Northern Michigan University. Admission is free.

            The exhibit is on loan from the Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collection. It chronicles one of the greatest upheavals in Michigan’s history. The determination, conflict, sorrow, and tragedy of this epic confrontation changed the Copper Country for decades and memories of conflict remain to this day. The complex story involves many actors: copper mining corporations with Eastern executives, Michigan managers, and thousands of mine workers; national labor organizations with Copper Country union locals; governmental agents at the local, state, and national level; the state militia, local police agencies, and privately-hired deputies; and local commercial and civic groups.

The exhibit intends to highlight the contexts within which this disruptive labor-management conflict developed and played out. Public familiarity with the history of organized labor has declined during the last century, so some additional emphasis has been given to understanding mineworkers’ perspectives at the time of these events.

The Beaumier Center is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday.