The railway strike of 1877 was provoked by _______

What did the Great Strike of 1877 achieve? In the short run, probably very little. Some workers did win a repeal of the onerous wage cuts that had triggered the strike in the first place, but most employees were forced to return to work without a pay increase. Individuals singled out as strike leaders often found themselves fired and blacklisted for their participation in the uprising. Several hundred strikers faced arrest, although few of those charged ever went to trial. Only a handful were found guilty, and most received light sentences. In many communities, law enforcement officials, judges, and juries seemed to heed the advice of the New York Sun editorial writer, who urged "forbearance and conciliation" in the handling of arrested strikers: "Generosity will win more friends and secure better results than a stern assertion of the letter of the law against men who honestly believed they were contending for the bread of their wives and children" (Foner 205).

Clear limits to a conciliatory approach emerged, however. The strengthening of the police, state militia, and the United States Army to prepare for future conflicts became one of the most enduring legacies of the Great Strike. Within two weeks of the strike, Chicago authorities developed a plan to augment their police force and the Illinois militia. The governor of Pennsylvania completely reorganized the state's National Guard, better equipping it for future outbreaks and dismissing officers who had shown sympathy for the striking workers. Officials in numerous states authorized funding to construct battlemented armories in several large cities.

The Great Strike also set a strong precedent for the use of federal troops in labor disputes. Previously, American presidents had only rarely and reluctantly deployed the army to suppress strikes. Although the federal troops deployed during the summer of 1877 arrived after the most severe rioting had already ended, the scope and scale of the intervention marked an erosion of the prevailing laissez-faire ideology, which called for a hands-off approach by the government in labor disputes. While Congress refused to heed the call for a massive increase in the size of the standing army, presidents would repeatedly authorize the use of army troops over the next several decades to put down strikes of all types, but railway strikes in particular.

Despite repeated appeals for better preparation to meet another labor uprising, few Americans seemed interested in a sustained discussion about the larger forces that had led to the Great Strike in the first place. At a meeting held on July 31, 1877, President Hayes and his cabinet debated the idea of regulating the powerful and increasingly unpopular railroads. "The strikes have been put down by force; but now for the real remedy," he wrote several days later in his diary. "Can't something be done by education of the strikers, by judicious control of the capitalists, by wise general policy to end or diminish the evil? The railroad strikers, as a rule, are good men, sober, intelligent and industrious" (Bruce 315). Although the Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman publicly advocated the idea of railroad regulation in a speech he delivered two weeks later, the Hayes administration quickly dropped the idea. Not until a decade later, in the face of mounting public indignation about industry abuses, did the Interstate Commerce Act finally provide limited federal regulation of railroads.

Another tangible long-term effect of the Great Strike was to energize the labor movement. "The railroad strike of 1877 was the tocsin that sounded a ringing message of hope to us all," declared labor leader Samuel Gompers nearly fifty years after the uprising (Bruce 318). The depression that began in 1873 had taken a deep toll on American trade unions, which boasted about 300,000 members earlier in the decade; by 1876 only 50,000 non-farm workers — approximately one out of a hundred — belonged to a trade union. In early 1878, the Knights of Labor held its first national assembly in Reading, Pennsylvania, one of the cities where militia troops had fired on striking workers. Welcoming members regardless of skill level, gender, or (after 1883) race, the Knights of Labor soon experienced phenomenal growth on the strength of a platform that advocated an eight-hour day, the abolition of child labor, and a graduated income tax. At its height in the mid-1880s, the Knights of Labor claimed a membership of more than 700,000 workers, before declining in the aftermath of the Haymarket Riot in 1886, which had led to a general repression of labor unions in the United States. At that point, the American Federation of Labor, an organization of skilled trade unions, took up the union banner. Under Gompers's leadership, the AFL claimed a membership of 1.7 million by 1904.

More than anything else, the Great Strike of 1877 signaled a breach between capital and labor in American society. The second half of the nineteenth century had witnessed the rise of the modern industrial order, complete with production on a massive scale, far-flung systems of distribution, the deskilling of labor, wild fluctuations in the economy, and the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power. In 1877, America's working class lashed out in response to the wage cuts that had brought many workers to the brink of starvation and protested against the excesses of the new industrial order — long hours, economic instability, brutal exploitation, and the feeling that they served as little more than cogs in a giant machine. The Washington Capital captured a sense of the greater meaning when it declared, a month after the Great Strike, that "America will never be the same again. For decades, yes centuries to come, our nation will feel the effects of the tidal wave that swept over it for two weeks in July" (Foner 230).

In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

In July 1877 West Virginia was the scene of a railroad strike that soon became the first nationwide strike in United States history. The trouble began when an economic depression led railroad companies to cut wages. Workers in West Virginia withheld their labor, and paralysis quickly spread to railways in the East and the Midwest in what became known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

In reaction to a business slump, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia cut wages for all employees by ten percent, including the president of the company. During the nineteenth century wages for unskilled laborers were meager, averaging $10 per week, although skilled workers could earn $20 per week. Since a 10 percent cut in pay caused a financial crisis for the families of many railroad workers, a number of train firemen refused to accept the wage cut and went on strike. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad firemen were soon joined by the employees of other rail lines in a sympathy strike. The railroad network itself insured that sympathizers stretched beyond the state of West Virginia, and strikes later broke out in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. It wasn't long before over half of all American railway line were closed.

In Martinsburg, West Virginia, a small number of local volunteer militiamen tried to break strike against the Baltimore and Ohio. Several strike leaders were arrested, but a supportive crowd quickly rescued them. West Virginia's governor Henry Matthew attempted to send in more military support for the beleaguered town. But the militia company called to suppress the strike would not mobilize, since many of its volunteers were railroad workers or had family ties to railroad workers. West Virginia had four organized militia units, but since two of them sympathized with the strikers, the state had need of re-enforcement. Governor Matthews requested federal troops from President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) to help end the strike. The state's appeal was followed by similar requests from Kentucky and Pennsylvania. President Hayes had the resources and complied. Federal troops were available because the end of Reconstruction saw the withdrawal of many soldiers from the South.

The worst violence took place in Pittsburgh, where local militia ordered to break the strike instead sided with the workers. Federal troops arrived, and ten strikers were killed when violence erupted. Enraged by the deaths of the strikers, a crowd attacked the federal troops, driving them from the city. The mob then turned to destroying railroad property. Additional strikes occurred along the nation's railroad lines, and federal troops continued to provide assistance to beleaguered states unprepared to deal with the strikers and their widespread support.

At the height of the 1877 strikes, eleven states called 45,000 Guardsmen into service. The War Department committed 2,100 regular troops. By August 2, 1877, the strikes were over. Order was restored and the trains were running again. Military force, assisted by managerial restraint, ended the walkout. The wages of railroad workers were restored or at least not cut further.

Newspapers blamed the strike on Communists and Communist sympathizers. President Hayes, however, was just as quick to deny the involvement of Communists. The attacks, he said, were directed against the railroads and not against property in general, as one would expect if the strike was Communist inspired.

Hayes was both praised and criticized for his use of federal troops. Striking workers and their sympathizers, many of whom were Civil War (1861–1865) veterans, deeply resented his employment of federal troops to break the strike. On the other hand, the president's supporters pointed to his cautious use of the troops and his reluctance to cause bloodshed. Critics, including Pennsylvania Railroad president Thomas Scott, charged that the president waited too long to call in the troops and that the wide scope of the strike was a result of the government's failure to protect the private property of the corporation and its shareholders.

Regardless of blame, the Railroad Strike of 1877 revealed serious labor unrest throughout the nation. The railroad industry targeted unions as a main source of their labor problems, and states re-examined their need for a well-equipped and trained militia. This widespread strike was among the first acts of what was to become a national labor movement.

See also: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Labor Movement, Railroad Industry, Reconstruction