Oil and egg tempera on board 90,2 x 68 cm (35" 1/2 x 26" 3/4) Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio Herrin Massacre was part of a commission by Life magazine that enlisted 16 contemporary artists to paint events from the history of the American labor movement. Cadmus who had already clashed with government officials over the satire and suggestive content of his public murals, selected as his subject the bloody confrontation between strikebreakers and striking miners that occurred in Herrin, Illinois in 1922 and resulted in the death of 26 men. Cadmus visited the site in 1939 and subsequently moved the scene depicted in his painting from near the mineshaft to the local cemetery, where several strikebreakers were executed by a vicious mob. Although Life had a color plate of Cadmus' painting prepared, the magazine declined to proceed with the publication. In the end, the artist's image proved too grisly and the interpretation of the riot too unsettling for the labor relations of a country on the verge of war.