"In general, it's something we don't talk about and we don't teach about, and I think that's because we don't tell stories anymore," Blair said. "We don't sit at the dinner table and tell these stories to our children, but these stories are the way we remember who we are."

Lipsitz - while he knew there was violence in the 1919 strike - said he had never heard specifically of Mazurek's tale until Hawley brought it to his attention, and the labor federation now intends to hold a remembrance of its own this autumn. Lipsitz describes it as "an amazing story" that underlines the cost of victories that should never be taken for granted.

Hawley said he was stunned when his research led him to the shooting. The descendants of steelworkers, he has a deep interest in civic heritage, and it troubles him that much of the historic focus in Buffalo is far more often on the mansions, monuments and family narratives of the wealthy.

The tale at the soul of this community, he said, is the way everyday laborers – often immigrants, arriving here with nothing – worked selflessly in the plants and furnaces of Western New York, sometimes dying from conditions too savage to endure.

It is important, Hawley said, “to chronicle the great struggle and sacrifice made by working people for basic dignity and respect."