Great Railroad Strike of 1877
1
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Blockade of engines at Martinsburg, West Virginia, 16 July 1877
Date
July 14, 1877 - September 4, 1877
Location
Goals
wages
Characteristics Strikes, Protest, Demonstrations
Parties to the civil conflict
Railroad workers; Workingmen’s Party Federal troops
Lead figures
Monroe Heath
Arrests, etc
Deaths: 20
Injuries: 29
Arrests:
Deaths:
Injuries:
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in
Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state
militias, and federal troops.
Economic conditions in the 1870s
Further information: Long Depression#United States and Long Depression
The 1870s saw a significant economic depression in Europe. The effects of this reached the United States on
September 18, 1873, with the failure of banking firm Jay Cooke and Company. As Cooke was the country’s top
investment banker, the principal backer of the Northern Pacific Railroad as well as a prime investor in other
railroads, and as the company which had handled most of the government’s wartime loans, its failure was
catastrophic. In response, the U.S. economy sputtered and then collapsed. Shortly after Cooke’s demise, the New
York Stock Exchange closed for 10 days, credit dried up, foreclosures and factory closings became common. Of the
country's 364 railroads, 89 went bankrupt, and over 18,000 businesses failed between 1873 and 1875.
Unemployment reached 14 percent by 1876, while workers who kept their jobs were employed for a mere six
months out of the year and suffered a 45% cut in their wages to approximately one dollar per day.[1] This economic
cataclysm is now referred to as the Panic of 1873.
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
While the public blamed President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States Congress for mishandling the economy, in
particular Grant's monetary policy of contracting the money supply, the causes of the panic were actually much
deeper. With the end of the Civil War, the country experienced feverish, unregulated growth, especially in the
railroad industry, with the government giving massive land grants and subsidies to railroad companies.[2] Thus, the
massive overbuilding of the nation’s railroads, and the overinvestment by bankers of depositors’ funds in the
railroads laid the foundation for the Panic and the depression that followed. A full economic recovery was not seen
until 1878-79.
Causes of the strike
When the Civil War ended, a boom in railroad construction ensued, with roughly 55000 kilometers (35,000) miles of
new track being laid from coast-to-coast between 1866 and 1873. The railroads, then the second largest employer
outside of agriculture, required large amounts of capital investment, and thus entailed massive financial risk.
Speculators fed large amounts of money into the industry, causing abnormal growth and over expansion. Jay Cooke's
firm, like many other banking firms, was investing a disproportionate share of depositors’ funds in the railroads, thus
paving the way for the ensuing collapse.
In addition to Cooke's direct infusion of capital in the railroads, the firm had become a federal agent for the
government in the government’s direct financing of railroad construction. As building new track in areas where land
had not yet been cleared or settled required land grants and loans that only the government could provide, the use of
Jay Cooke’s firm as a conduit for federal funding worsened the effects that Cooke’s bankruptcy had on the nation’s
economy.
In the wake of the Panic of 1873, a bitter antagonism between workers and the leaders of industry developed. By
1877, 10% wage cuts, distrust of capitalists and poor working conditions led to a number of railroad strikes that
prevented the trains from moving. This antagonism lingered well after the depression ended in 1878-79, eventually
erupting into the labor unrest that marked the following decades and that eventually led to the birth of labor unions in
the United States.
Additionally, the 1876 presidential election between Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes had been a narrow
victory for Tilden in the popular vote, but while Tilden had a plurality of electoral votes (184-165) he did not have a
majority as is required by the United States Constitution. This sent the election to the House of Representatives who
were unable to reach agreement. On January 29, 1877, the U.S. Congress passed a law forming a 15-member
Electoral Commission to decide on a winner. Five members came from each house of the U.S. Congress, with the
other five members coming from the Supreme Court of the United States. Thanks in part to a deal brokered by
Thomas Alexander Scott (who surfaced as a figure during the strike), the commission awarded the disputed electoral
votes to Hayes. Thus, the mood of the country grew darker, as those who had voted for Tilden felt disenfranchised.[3]
2
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Strike
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started on
July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in
response to the cutting of wages for the second
time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
(B&O). Striking workers would not allow any of
the stock to roll until this second wage cut was
revoked. The governor sent in state militia units
to restore train service, but the soldiers refused
to use force against the strikers and the governor
called for federal troops.
Maryland
Meanwhile, the strike spread to Cumberland,
Maryland, stopping freight and passenger traffic.
When Governor John Carroll of Maryland
directed the 5th and 6th Regiments of the
National Guard to put down the strike, citizens
from Baltimore were attacked, and killed, by the
militia which resulted in the strikers and
onlookers to retaliate, attacking the troops in turn
as they marched from their armories towards
B&O's Camden Station for the train to
Maryland National Guard Sixth Regiment fighting its way through Baltimore,
Cumberland, causing violent street battles
Maryland, 20 July 1877
between the striking workers and the Maryland
militia. When the outnumbered troops of the 6th Regiment fired on an attacking crowd, they killed 10 and wounded
25.[4] The rioters injured several members of the militia, damaged engines and train cars, and burned portions of the
train station.[4] On July 21–22, the President sent federal troops and Marines to Baltimore to restore order.
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became the site of the worst violence. Thomas Alexander Scott of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, often considered one of the first robber barons, suggested that the strikers should be given "a rifle diet for a
few days and see how they like that kind of bread." However, local law enforcement officers refused to fire on the
strikers.
Nonetheless, his request came to pass on July 21, when militiamen bayoneted and fired on rock-throwing strikers,
killing twenty people and wounding twenty-nine others.[5] Rather than quell the uprising however, this action merely
infuriated the strikers who then forced the militiamen to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse, and then set fires that
razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars. On July 22, the militiamen
mounted an assault on the strikers, shooting their way out of the roundhouse and killing 20 more people on their way
out of the city. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal
troops to end the strikes.
Three hundred miles to the east, Philadelphia strikers battled local militia and set fire to much of Center City before
federal troops intervened and put down the uprising.
Pennsylvania's third major industrial city at the time, Reading, was also hit by the Strike's fury. This city was home
of the engine works and shops of its namesake Reading Railroad, against which engineers were already on strike
3
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
4
since April 1877. Sixteen citizens were shot by state militia in the Reading Railroad Massacre. Preludes to the
massacre include: fresh work stoppage all classes of the railroad's local workforce; mass marches; blocking of rail
traffic; trainyard arson; and the burning down of the bridge providing this railroad's only link to the west - to prevent
local militia from being mustered to Harrisburg or Pittsburgh. The militia responsible for the shootings was
mobilized by Reading Railroad management, not by local public officials.[6]
The 1877 Shamokin Uprising occurred on
July 25, when 1000 men and boys, many of
them coal miners, marched to the Reading
Railroad Depot in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.
They looted the depot when the town
announced it would only pay them $1/day
for emergency public employment. The
mayor, who owned coal mines, formed a
vigilante group that killed 2 out of 14
civilian shooting casualties.
Burning of Pennsylvania Railroad and Union Depot, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
21–22 July 1877
Illinois
On July 24, rail traffic in Chicago was paralyzed when angry mobs of unemployed citizens wreaked havoc in the rail
yards, shutting down both the Baltimore and Ohio and the Illinois Central Railroads. Soon, other railroads were
brought to a standstill, with demonstrators shutting down railroad traffic in Bloomington, Aurora, Peoria, Decatur,
Urbana and other rail centers throughout Illinois. In sympathy, coal miners in the pits at Braidwood, LaSalle,
Springfield, and Carbondale went on strike as well. In Chicago, the Workingmen’s Party organized demonstrations
that drew crowds of twenty thousand people.
Judge Thomas Drummond of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who was overseeing
numerous railroads that had declared bankruptcy in the wake of the Panic of 1873 rules that "A strike or other
unlawful interference with the trains will be a violation of the United States law, and the court will be bound to take
notice of it and enforce the penalty.[7] Drummond told federal marshals to protect the railroads, and asked for federal
troops to enforce his decision: he subsequently had strikers arrested and then tried them for contempt of court.[7]
The mayor of Chicago, Monroe Heath,
asked for five thousand vigilantes to help
restore order (they were partially
successful), and shortly thereafter the
National Guard and federal troops arrived.
On July 25, violence between police and the
mob erupted with events reaching a peak the
following
day.
These
blood-soaked
confrontations between police and enraged
mobs occurred at the Halsted Street viaduct,
at nearby 16th Street, at Halsted and 12th,
and on Canal Street. The headline of the
Chicago Times screamed, "Terrors Reign,
Burning of Union Depot, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 21–22 July 1877
The Streets of Chicago Given Over to
Howling
Mobs
of
Thieves
and
Cutthroats."[5] Order was finally restored, however, with the deaths of nearly 20 men and boys, none of which were
law enforcement or troops, the wounding of scores more, and the loss of property valued in the millions of dollars.
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Missouri
see main article 1877 Saint Louis general strike
On July 21, disgruntled workers in the industrial rail hub of East St. Louis, Missouri, halted all freight traffic, with
the city remaining in the control of the strikers for almost a week.
In response the St. Louis Workingman's Party led a group of approximately 500 people across the Missouri River in
an act of solidarity with the nearly 1,000 workers on strike. That act transformed an initial strike among railroad
workers into a strike by thousands of workers in several industries for the eight-hour day and a ban on child labor,
the first general strike in the United States.
The strike on both side of the river was ended when some 3,000 federal troops and 5,000 deputized special police
killed at least eighteen people in skirmishes around the city. On July 28, 1877, they took control of the Relay Depot,
the Commune's command center, and arrested some seventy strikers.
Strike Over
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began to lose momentum when President Hayes sent federal troops from city to
city. These troops suppressed strike after strike, until at last, approximately 45 days after it had started, the Great
Railroad Strike of 1877 was over.
Laying blame
The strike and its repercussions were attributed on a number of factors by contemporaries:
• Xenophobia: German and Bohemian agitators were blamed most often, but in some cities other ethnic groups
were blamed as well.
• Idle hands: Illinois governor Shelby Cullom stated that "the vagrant, the willfully idle, was the chief element in all
these disturbances," his premise being that an unemployed man was unemployed due to choice, rather than the
paucity of jobs.
• Communism: Still others asserted that the Great Railroad Strike was due to Communist influences. The New York
World blamed "the hands of men dominated by the devilish spirit of Communism." Given that the Workingmen’s
Party (WP) was a Socialist party affiliated with the Marxist movement sweeping Europe, it is understandable that
this connection was made. However, it should be noted that the WP did not instigate the strike, rather it fanned its
flames. In his 1878 book Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives, Allan Pinkerton blamed the unrest on a
combination of Paris Commune proponents and the high degree of transiency of the American working class at
the time.
• Lack of trade unions: While there was some union activity, especially from the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers and Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, many of the strikers had yet to organize.
• The 1876 Election Deal: Thomas Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, delivered the disputed congressional votes
to Hayes in exchange for a federal bailout of failing investments in the Texas and Pacific railroad. While it is not
clear if this deal led to Hayes’ sending of federal troops to the strike-torn areas, the possibility of a quid pro quo
arrangement is tenable.
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Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Economic impact
While no complete accounting of the economic losses caused by this strike exists, it is known that the engineers' and
firemen's brotherhoods lost approximately $600,000 over the forty-five days of the strike, while for the Burlington
Railroad the losses were at least $2,100,000.
In Pittsburgh, it was estimated that property damage reached about five million dollars, with Chicago, Baltimore and
other cities facing losses of a similar magnitude.[3]
Impact on future labor relations
After the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, union organizers planned for their next battles while politicians and business
leaders took steps to ensure that such chaos could not reoccur. Many states enacted conspiracy statutes. States
formed new militia units, and National Guard armories were constructed in a number of cities. For workers and
employers alike, the strikes had shown the power of workers in combination to challenge the status quo. They were
driven, as a Pittsburgh state militiaman, who was ordered to break the 1877 strike, pointed out, by “one spirit and one
purpose among them -– that they were justified in resorting to any means to break down the power of the
corporations.”
Thus, in the wake of the strike, unions became better organized and the number of strikes increased. In the 1880s
there were nearly ten thousand strikes and lockouts and in 1886 nearly 700,000 workers went on strike. As is to be
expected, business leaders took a more rigid stance against the unions. Nonetheless, and possibly because of the
more rigid stance, the labor movement continued to grow.
One result of the strike was increased public awareness of the grievances of railroad workers. In 1880 the B&O
railroad, which had the lowest wage rate of any major railroad, established the Baltimore and Ohio Employees'
Relief Association, which provided coverage for sickness, injury from accidents, and a death benefit.[8] In 1884, the
B&O became the first major employer to offer a pension plan.[8]
In 1886, there was a national strike aimed at reducing the average workday from twelve to eight hours, and 340,000
workers struck at 12,000 companies nationwide. In Chicago, police were trying to break up a large labor meeting in
Haymarket Square, when a bomb exploded without warning, killing a police officer. Police fired into the crowd,
killing one and wounding many more. Because of the riot, four labor organizers were hanged. The hangings of these
organizers took the steam out of the national labor movement and energized management. By 1890, Knights of
Labor membership had fallen to ten percent of its previous levels.
In 1893-1894, a severe depression swept the nation and America saw some of its worst strikes in history, including
that against the Pullman Palace Car Company. The strike, which had been caused by severe wage cuts, stopped
railroad traffic, with battles between troops and strikers breaking out in twenty-six states.
The defeat of the Pullman Strike fed an intense debate within the labor movement between the proponents of craft
unionism and of industrial unionism, an argument that continued for several decades.
6
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Commemoration
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg Shops, where the strike began, were declared a National Historic
Landmark in 2003.
References
[1] Shelton, Josh. "Pages from US Labor History: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877" (http:/ / www. socialistappeal. org/ uslaborhistory/
great_railroad_strike_of_1877. htm). . Retrieved 2008-05-25.
[2] Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, Dee Brown
[3] The American Heritage Book of the Presidents. volume=VI: American Heritage. 1967.
[4] Scharf, J. Thomas (1967 (reissue of 1879 ed.)). History of Maryland From the Earliest Period to the Present Day. 3. Hatboro, PA: Tradition
Press. pp. 733–42.
[5] "The Great Stike of 1877: Remembering a Worker Rebellion" (http:/ / www. ranknfile-ue. org/ uen_1877. html). UE News. June 2002. .
Retrieved 2008-05-25.
[6] Zinn, Howard (1995). A People's History of the United States 1492-present (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=P8V7J5qm5-YC& dq=People's+
History+ of+ the+ United+ States& printsec=frontcover& q=). New York: Harper Collins. pp. 248. ISBN 0-06-052842-7. . Retrieved
2009-10-05.
[7] Cahan, Richard (2002). A Court That Shaped America: Chicago's Federal District Court from Abe Lincoln to Abbie Hoffman (http:/ / books.
google. com/ ?id=ALsW1pAD4A0C& dq=Court+ That+ Shaped+ America& printsec=frontcover& q=). Northwestern University Press.
pp. 33–34. ISBN 0-8101-1981-1. . Retrieved 2009-10-05.
[8] Gillett, Sylvia (1991). "Camden Yards and the Strike of 1877" (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=626B6J8at00C& pg=PA171& lpg=PA171&
dq=baltimore+ book& q=). In Fee, Elizabeth, Shopes, Linda; and Zeidman, Linda (eds.). The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 11–14. ISBN 0-87722-823-X. .
General references
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Panic of 1873. By u-s-history (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h213.html)
Panic of 1873. By thehistorybox (http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/panics/panics_article9a.htm)
US Grant (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/e_panic.html)
RAILROAD STRIKE OF 1877 (http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/
ah_073500_railroadstri.htm)
THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE OF 1877 (http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/ibex/archive/vignettes/
1877_rr_strike.htm)
THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE.Harper's Weekly—April 21, 1888 (http://www.catskillarchive.com/
rrextra/sk881.Html)
Pages from US Labor History: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (http://www.socialistappeal.org/
uslaborhistory/great_railroad_strike_of_1877.htm)
The American Heritage Book of the Presidents, Vol VI, American Heritage, 1967
External links
• The Great Strike, Harper's Weekly, August, 11, 1887 (http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/sk7711.Html)
• The Great Railroad Strike Harper's Weekly, April 21, 1888 (http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/sk881.
Html)
• The Strike of 1877, Maryland State Archives (http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000070/
html/t70.html)
• The B&O Railroad Strike of 1877, The (Martinsburg) Statesman, July 24, 1877 (http://www.wvculture.org/
HISTORY/labor/bandostrike01.html)
• The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Network (http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.
com/scott_w_dunlap/Main2.html&date=2009-10-26+02:12:59)
• The 1877 Shamokin Uprising and the Great Railroad Strike, The News Item of Shamokin, mid-eastern
Pennsylvania, July 25, 2007 (http://www.on-track-on-line.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19083&hl=)
7
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• Excerpt from A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
p.245-251 ISBN 0-06-052837-0 (http://libcom.org/history/1877-the-great-railroad-strike)
• "Reading's Place in The Great Strike & After", Berks County(,Pennsylvania) Historical Society (http://www.
berkshistory.org/articles/railroad.html)
Further reading
•
•
•
•
Bruce, Robert V., 1877: Year of Violence, 1959. [Reprinted 1989. ISBN 0-929587-05-7]
Foner, Philip S., The Great Labor Uprising of 1877, 1977. ISBN 0-87348-828-8 (paper)
Brecher, Jeremy., Strike!, 1997. ISBN 0-89608-570-8 (cloth)
Dailey, Lucia. "Mine Seed," 2002. ISBN I-4033-6697-7
8
Article Sources and Contributors
Article Sources and Contributors
Great Railroad Strike of 1877 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=520949238 Contributors: 90 Auto, Acather96, ActivExpression, Adam sk, Alansohn, Andrew Gray,
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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
File:Harpers 8 11 1877 Blockade of Engines at Martinsburg W VA.jpg Source:
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Infrogmation, Man vyi, Tim1965, Tomcool
File:Harpers 8 11 1877 6th Regiment Fighting Baltimore.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Harpers_8_11_1877_6th_Regiment_Fighting_Baltimore.jpg License:
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File:Harpers 8 11 1877 Steeple View of Pittsburgh Conflagaration.jpg Source:
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File:Harpers 8 11 1877 Destruction of the Union Depot.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Harpers_8_11_1877_Destruction_of_the_Union_Depot.jpg License: Public
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