A leading figure of the Progressive movement, Altgeld signed workplace safety and child labor laws, pardoned three of the men convicted in the Haymarket Affair, and rejected calls in 1894 to break up the Pullman strike by force.

After a stint in the Union Army as a youth, Altgeld studied law in Missouri, while working as a manual laborer, and became involved in progressive politics.

Altgeld eventually opened a law practice in Chicago, and became a real estate developer, and local judge before being elected governor.

[3] After a brief stint in an Ohio seminary, he walked to Missouri and studied to become a lawyer while working on itinerant railroad construction crews.

Becoming ill from the climate and the labor, Altgeld wandered to Kansas and Iowa before settling as a teacher and farmhand near Savannah, Missouri.

He became wealthy, however, from a series of real estate dealings and development projects, including residential and office properties in Chicago and a streetcar line in Newark, Ohio.

Altgeld also made an error by trying to borrow $400,000 from John R. Walsh, president of the Jennings Trust Company and of the Chicago National Bank.

"[citation needed] His first public post was city attorney in Savannah, Missouri, in which capacity he rewrote a code of ordinances.

In Missouri Altgeld became involved in the Granger movement and the Democratic Party and was elected to be state's attorney for the county in 1874.

[10][page needed] Although this district was heavily Republican, Adams defeated him by just 8 points (54–46%), a better showing than well-known Democrat Lambert Tree had made two years earlier.

As a Republican leader recalled, "He (Altgeld) was not elected, but our executive committee was pretty badly frightened by the strong canvass he made.

[12] In 1891, he unsuccessfully challenged John M. Palmer in seeking to have the Illinois General Assembly appoint him to the United States Senate.

For instance, State Representative James Cockrell was convinced by Clarence Darrow to abandon his plans of running.

[9] However, by February 23, it was reported that Black had withdrawn from the race, leaving Altgeld as the only candidate seeking the Democratic nomination.

Although the General Assembly hall was so warm as to cause several men to faint, Altgeld, clad in a heavy topcoat, was pale and visibly shivering.

Altgeld, however, refused to authorize President Grover Cleveland to send in Federal troops to quell the disturbances.

[18][19] Citing Article IV of the Constitution, which permits federal troops to enter a state only if a condition of insurrection exists, Altgeld argued that there was no legal bearing to a decision to send the military to quell the strike.

"[10][page needed] However, on July 4, 1894, Cleveland went ahead and sent several thousand troops to Chicago without Altgeld's approval, an action later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He sent the militia to eight areas during the strike, including to Mount Olive, where the miners blocked the Chicago, Peoria, and St. Louis railroad from shipping coal.

"[21] Historically, Altgeld is remembered chiefly for pardoning the three surviving men convicted in the 1886 Haymarket bombing (four others had already been executed, one committed suicide in prison).

The judge that prosecuted the men, Joseph E. Gary, had upheld a ruling that found Altgeld in contempt of the Cook County Superior Court.

[22] Harper's Weekly warned that Bryan would be a puppet of Altgeld, whom it referred to as "the ambitious and unscrupulous Illinois communist."

[25] Altgeld charged that Harrison was building a political machine and that his administration was corrupt, publicly claiming in March 1899 that Harrison's administration was complicit in the theft of city funds by political allies in connection with city public works projects.

He finished third, garnering more than 15 percent of the vote, but was unable to achieve his ulterior motive, the defeat of Mayor Carter Harrison.

[27] Sickly since his brush with death in the Civil War, Altgeld had suffered from locomotor ataxia while governor, impairing his ability to walk.

He lost all of his property except his heavily mortgaged personal residence, and only the intervention of his friend and former protégé, Clarence Darrow, saved him from complete financial ruin.

Altgeld was working as a lawyer in Darrow's law firm when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while delivering a speech on behalf of the Boers in Joliet, Illinois, in March 1902.

Thousands filed past his body as it lay in state in the lobby of the Chicago Public Library, and he was eulogized by Darrow and by Hull House founder Jane Addams.