THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE OF 1877 – REMEMBERING A WORKER REBELLION

REMEMBERING
A WORKER REBELLION

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One hundred and twenty-five years ago, American workers exploded with rage — and the rulers of the nation feared the fury of the “terror” from within.

A headline in the Chicago Times in 1877 expressed the capitalists’ anxious outrage: “Terrors Reign, The Streets of Chicago Given Over to Howling Mobs of Thieves and Cutthroats.”

After three years, the nation still suffered through a major economic depression. A strike by railroad workers sparked a coast-to-coast conflagration, as workers driven by despair and desperation battled troops in the streets of major U.S. cities.

The foreign born were widely blamed for the unprecedented, collective expression of rage against economic hardship and injustice.

The ruling elite, badly shaken by the widespread protests, thought a revolution was underway. The New York Sun prescribed “a diet of lead for the hungry strikers.”

When the fires turned to cold ash and working-class families buried their dead, no one — neither labor nor capital — would be the same again.

If there ever was such a thing, this was no ordinary strike. It was an explosion of “firsts.”

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first major strike in an industry that propelled America’s industrial revolution. It was the first national strike, stretching from Atlantic to Pacific. In some cities, especially St. Louis, the struggle became one of the nation’s first general strikes. This was the first major strike broken by the U.S. military. Probably in no other strike had so many working people met a violent death at the hands of the authorities…