Transatlantic Burials: The “Resurrection” of Pio, Geleff, and Thrane

In 1921, the Danish Social Democratic Party celebrated its 50th anniversary with a flurry of activities. Among the more notable commemorations were 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 labor movement and sparked a century-long historiographical realignment. This chapter analyzes 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 separate motivations, were mutually 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.