Leon Czolgosz

Leon Czolgosz
Leon Czolgosz circa 1900, unknown photographer
Born	Leon Frank Czolgosz May 5, 1873 Alpena, Michigan, U.S.
Died	October 29, 1901(1901-10-29) (aged 28) Auburn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Steel worker
Criminal charge	First-degree murder
Criminal penalty	Death by electrocution
Criminal status	Executed by electric chair
Parent(s)	Paul Czolgosz Mary Nowak
Conviction(s)	Assassination of William McKinley

Leon Frank Czolgosz (Polish form: Czołgosz,Polish pronunciation: [ˈt͡ʂɔwɡɔʂ]; May 5, 1873 – October 29, 1901) was an American anarchist and former steel worker who assassinated U.S. President William McKinley in September 1901. Czolgosz was executed later that year.

Czolgosz was born in Alpena, Michigan, on May 5, 1873. He was one of eight children of Paul Czolgosz and his wife Mary Nowak. The Czolgosz family moved to Detroit when Leon was five. At the age of 10, while living in Posen, Michigan, Czolgosz's mother died six weeks after giving birth to his sister, Victoria. His first job was at about age fourteen to sixteen in a glass factory in Natrona, Pennsylvania, returning home two years later. By age seventeen he found employment at the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company.

After the economic crash of 1893, when the factory closed for some time and looked to reduce wages, the workers went on strike, putting Leon and his brothers out of work. With great economic and social turmoil around him, Czolgosz found little comfort in the Polish Catholic Church and other immigrant institutions, and sought others who shared his concerns regarding injustice. He joined a moderate workingman's socialist club, the Golden Eagle Society, and eventually a more radical socialist group known as the Sila Club where he became interested in anarchism.

In 1898, after witnessing a series of similar strikes (many ending in violence), and perhaps ill from a respiratory disease, Czolgosz went to live with his father who had bought a fifty-five acre farm the year before in Warrensville, Ohio. He did little to assist in the running of the farm and was constantly at odds with his stepmother and with his family's Roman Catholic beliefs. It was later recounted that throughout his life he had never shown any interest in friendship or romantic relationships and was bullied during his childhood by peers.