Portrait of Joe Hill

Joe Hill

Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Lived
1879–1915
Country
Sweden
Also writes as
Joseph Hillström

Updated September 2026

About Joe Hill

Joe Hill was a Swedish-American labor activist, poet, and songwriter. He worked as an itinerant worker for much of his life, organizing with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a militant anarcho-syndicalist labor union. His conviction for murder and execution under questionable evidence led to him becoming a folk hero among the American labor and radical movements.

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.