The Pullman Strike
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1760
General Information
Source:
NBC News
Resource Type:
Creator:
N/A
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
1893 - 1894
01/12/2007
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video MiniDocumentary
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2007
00:02:18
Description
Many railroad workers nationwide joined the Pullman railroad workers in protest, but the strike soon
turned violent.
Keywords
Railroads, Strikes, Labor Unrest, George Pullman, Workers, Wages, Panic of 1893, Recession,
Depression, Unemployment, Eugene V. Debs, American Railway Union, Chicago, Violence, Radicals,
Socialists, Grover Cleveland, Federal Troops, Illinois, U.S. Mail, Mobs
Citation
MLA
"The Pullman Strike." NBC News. NBCUniversal Media. 12 Jan. 2007. NBC Learn. Web. 23 October
2015
APA
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 3
2007, January 12. The Pullman Strike. [Television series episode]. NBC News. Retrieved from
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1760
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"The Pullman Strike" NBC News, New York, NY: NBC Universal, 01/12/2007. Accessed Fri Oct 23
2015 from NBC Learn: https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1760
Transcript
The Pullman Strike
NARRATOR: Railroad tycoon George Pullman paid his workers unusually high wages, but in return, he
expected them to pay high rents to live in his company town. It worked, until the Panic of 1893.
Professor EDWARD T. O’DONNELL (Holy Cross College): The nation plunges into a terrible recession,
a deep economic depression that's going to spike unemployment and cause all kinds of difficulties.
NARRATOR: Pullman slashed his workers’ pay by 25 percent, but he refused to lower the cost of his
company housing. Pullman’s workers felt trapped. They couldn’t afford their rent, but they couldn’t
afford to leave their jobs, either. So in May of 1894, they walked off those jobs in protest.
Professor O’DONNELL: It is one of the epic strikes in American history. And it's led by a man named
Eugene Debs, who is the head of the American Railway Union.
NARRATOR: Eugene Debs used his influence to convince a quarter-million other railroad workers
around the country to walk off their jobs in sympathy with the Pullman workers, essentially shutting down
all rail traffic from Chicago to the West Coast.
Professor O’DONNELL: And the strike spreads. Because it's a rail strike, it actually has national
implications. And there’s a lot of violence. There's a lot of destruction of property. Which plays into the
hands of those who oppose the strike and oppose Debs who is a self styled radical and Socialist.
NARRATOR: One of the people who opposed Debs was President Grover Cleveland. He sent 2500
federal troops to Chicago to stop the strike, over the objections of the Governor of Illinois.
Professor O’DONNELL: Cleveland sent them in anyway, on the pretext that these trains move U.S. mails,
and that his job was to make sure that the postal system is able to deliver the mail.
NARRATOR: The troops arrived on July Fourth. Violence broke out. Mobs destroyed rail equipment, and
troops began shooting strikers. By the end of July, thirty-four strikers were dead, and the Pullman Strike
was over.
Professor O’DONNELL: And so, it's a vivid example of how the power of industry and, in this case, the
federal government were still very much lined up against organized labor in the late 19th century.
Related Cue Cards
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 2 of 3
Jim Crow Laws in the South
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=491
After the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks fill local and
national offices, but white southerners are determined to pass
new state laws to curtail this progress.
Black Codes
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=454
Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University discusses the
Black Codes, which were written by white southerners to
force blacks to keep working on plantations.
Radical Reconstruction
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=493
To protect the rights of blacks after the Civil War, the federal
government replaced state governments in the South with
military districts and extended voting rights.
Progressivism v. Populism
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=629
Populism and Progressivism developed in the early 20th
century. Professor Steven Hahn of the University of
Pennsylvania compares the two political movements.
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 3 of 3