Leon F. Czolgosz
| Leon Czolgosz | |
|---|---|
Leon Czolgosz in 1900
|
|
| Born |
Leon Frank Czolgosz May 5, 1873 Alpena, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | October 29, 1901 (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 |
| Motive | To advance anarchism |
| Conviction(s) | Assassination of William McKinley |
 Booknotes interview with Eric Rauchway on Murdering McKinley, September 21, 2003, C-SPAN
|
|
|
Q&A interview with Scott Miller on The President and the Assassin, July 3, 2011, C-SPAN
|
Leon Frank Czolgosz (Polish: Czołgosz[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 just over seven weeks later.
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. When he was 10 years old, while living in Posen, Michigan, Czolgosz's mother died six weeks after giving birth to his sister, Victoria. In his mid-teens, he worked in a glass factory in Natrona, Pennsylvania. 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 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.
...
Wikipedia