Socialist William Bruekmann was elected mayor in 1912 by the borough's immigrant resident base of skilled silk workers. During the 1913 Paterson silk strike, Haledon's mayor offered the strikers the opportunity to hold meetings in Haledon, as worker meetings were prohibited in Paterson. The Pietro and Maria Botto House, located on the side of a hill surrounded by open spaces, provided a natural amphitheater for labor leaders of the day to address thousands of people who gathered to hear Big Bill Haywood, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and John Reed. The Botto House is now a National Historic Landmark and the home of the American Labor Museum.