Schaack, Michael J. was an officer of the Chicago Police Department in the United States. Publicly available information about his life is limited, and details such as his birth and death years and educational background are unknown. He is known to later generations for writing Anarchy and Anarchists, a book that, from the perspective of a participant and law-enforcement officer, recounts the Haymarket affair in late nineteenth-century Chicago and the surrounding anarchist movement. As a police officer, Schaack writes from a distinctly official standpoint, offering a detailed account of the social unrest, labor protests, and radical political groups of the period. The work serves as an important primary source for the study of American labor history and immigrant political communities. Because public information is limited, his writing style and historical influence are mainly reflected through this single work, whose portrayal of anarchists has long been both a reference point and a subject of controversy in related historical discussion.
