Transatlantic Burials: The “resurrection” of Louis Pio, Poul Geleff and Marcus Thrane

In 1921, the Danish Social Democratic Party celebrated its 50th anniversary with a flurry of activities. Among the more notable commemorations was a reburial – and “resurrection” – of the party’s founder, Louis Pio, who had passed away in Chicago in 1894. The ceremony reshaped the remembrance of the early labour movement and sparked a century-long historiographical realignment. This chapter analyses why and how the national recollection of Pio and his socialist allies was transformed and finds that Sylvia Pio and the Social Democratic Party, despite their different motivations, were both interested in establishing a new narrative in which the founders were portrayed as national heroes who had paved the way for a more democratic society focused on “the people”. In conclusion, the study offers a comparative perspective on the memory-making surrounding Norwegian-born labour leader Marcus Thrane, who passed away in Wisconsin in 1890 and whose remains, spurred by the Norwegian Labour Party’s leadership, were reburied in Oslo in 1949.