Pittsburgh Rail Strike of 1877

The Pittsburgh Rail Strike of 1877 was the largest and most violent of a series of rail strikes across the United States in 1877. That year, the country was in the fourth year of a prolonged depression after the Panic of 1873. The strikes were precipitated by wage cuts announced by the Baltimore and Ohio (B & O) Railroad—its second cut in 8 months. Railway work was already poorly paid and dangerous. Deaths and injuries among the workers—losses of hands, feet, and fingers and the crushing of men between cars—were common. Workers had no health insurance or death benefits; if an injured worker could not do his job, he was fired. The companies had taken advantage of the economic troubles to largely break the nascent trade unions that had been formed by the workers before and after the Civil War.

Protests began on July 11 in Baltimore. Strikebreakers were brought in, and the police dispersed the strikers without violence. Strikers at the B & O station at [Page 1124]Martinsburg, West Virginia, were more successful. They uncoupled the engines, ran them into the roundhouse, and announced no more trains would leave Martinsburg until the 10% cut was canceled. A crowd of support gathered, too many for the local police to disperse. Railway officials asked the governor for military protection, and the governor sent in militia. A train tried to get through, protected by the militia, and a striker, trying to derail it, exchanged gunfire with a militiaman attempting to stop him. The striker was shot and killed.

The West Virginia governor applied to newly elected President Rutherford Hayes for federal troops, saying the state militia was insufficient. In fact, the militia was not totally reliable, being composed of many railway workers. Once federal troops arrived in Martinsburg on July 19, the freight cars began to move.

Meanwhile, the strike spread to Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Again, the spark came from outside the union. On July 19, a flagman named Gus Harris refused to go out on a double-header (a train hauled by two engines). The rest of the crew joined him. The strike quickly grew and was joined by men from the surrounding iron mills and glass factories.

Railway and city officials decided that the Pittsburgh militia would not kill their fellow townsmen and urged that Philadelphia troops be called in. By now 2,000 cars were idle in Pittsburgh. On July 20, the Philadelphia troops arrived and began to clear the track. A riot broke out. Gunfire was exchanged between the crowd and the troops. At least 10 people were killed, all workingmen, most of them not railroaders.

Now the whole city rose in anger. A crowd surrounded the troops, who moved into a roundhouse. Railroad cars were set afire, as were the surrounding buildings and finally the roundhouse itself. The guardsmen marched from it, with more accompanying gunfire. Thousands looted the freight cars. A huge grain elevator and a small section of the city went up in flames. In a few days, 24 people had been killed (4 of them soldiers). Something like a general strike was developing in Pittsburgh as millworkers, car workers, miners, laborers, and the employees at the Carnegie steel plant joined in.

...