Download or read book Streets Railroads and the Great Strike of 1877 written by David O. Stowell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-06 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For one week in late July of 1877, America shook with anger and fear as a variety of urban residents, mostly working class, attacked railroad property in dozens of towns and cities. The Great Strike of 1877 was one of the largest and most violent urban uprisings in American history. Whereas most historians treat the event solely as a massive labor strike that targeted the railroads, David O. Stowell examines America's predicament more broadly to uncover the roots of this rebellion. He studies the urban origins of the Strike in three upstate New York cities—Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse. He finds that locomotives rumbled through crowded urban spaces, sending panicked horses and their wagons careening through streets. Hundreds of people were killed and injured with appalling regularity. The trains also disrupted street traffic and obstructed certain forms of commerce. For these reasons, Stowell argues, The Great Strike was not simply an uprising fueled by disgruntled workers. Rather, it was a grave reflection of one of the most direct and damaging ways many people experienced the Industrial Revolution. "Through meticulously crafted case studies . . . the author advances the thesis that the strike had urban roots, that in substantial part it represented a community uprising. . . .A particular strength of the book is Stowell's description of the horrendous accidents, the toll in human life, and the continual disruption of craft, business, and ordinary movement engendered by building railroads into the heart of cities."—Charles N. Glaab, American Historical Review

Download or read book The Last Great Strike written by Ahmed White and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-01-04 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four large steel companies known collectively as “Little Steel.” The strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law, and recognize their union. For two months a grinding struggle unfolded, punctuated by bloody clashes in which police, company agents, and National Guardsmen ruthlessly beat and shot unionists. At least sixteen died and hundreds more were injured before the strike ended in failure. The violence and brutality of the Little Steel Strike became legendary. In many ways it was the last great strike in modern America. Traditionally the Little Steel Strike has been understood as a modest setback for steel workers, one that actually confirmed the potency of New Deal reforms and did little to impede the progress of the labor movement. However, The Last Great Strike tells a different story about the conflict and its significance for unions and labor rights. More than any other strike, it laid bare the contradictions of the industrial labor movement, the resilience of corporate power, and the limits of New Deal liberalism at a crucial time in American history.

Download or read book The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor written by Theresa A. Case and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on a story largely untold until now, Theresa A. Case studies the "Great Southwest Strike of 1886," which pitted entrepreneurial freedom against the freedom of employees to have a collective voice in their workplace. This series of local actions involved a historic labor agreement followed by the most massive sympathy strike the nation had ever seen. It attracted western railroaders across lines of race and skill, contributed to the rise and decline of the first mass industrial union in U.S. history (the Knights of Labor), and brought new levels of federal intervention in railway strikes. Case takes a fresh look at the labor unrest that shook Jay Gould's railroad empire in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. In Texas towns and cities like Marshall, Dallas, Fort Worth, Palestine, Texarkana, Denison, and Sherman, union recognition was the crucial issue of the day. Case also powerfully portrays the human facets of this strike, reconstructing the story of Martin Irons, a Scottish immigrant who came to adopt the union cause as his own. Irons committed himself wholly to the failed strike of 1886, continuing to urge violence even as courts handed down injunctions protecting the railroads, national union leaders publicly chastised him, the press demonized him, and former strikers began returning to work. Irons’s individual saga is set against the backdrop of social, political, and economic changes that transformed the region in the post–Civil War era. Students, scholars, and general readers interested in railroad, labor, social, or industrial history will not want to be without The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor.

Download or read book The Great Cowboy Strike written by Mark Lause and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When cowboys were workers and battled their bosses In the pantheon of American icons, the cowboy embodies the traits of “rugged individualism,” independent, solitary, and stoical. In reality, cowboys were grossly exploited and underpaid seasonal workers, who responded to the abuses of their employers in a series of militant strikes. Their resistance arose from the rise and demise of a “beef bonanza” that attracted international capital. Business interests approached the market with the expectation that it would have the same freedom to brutally impose its will as it had exercised on native peoples and the recently emancipated African Americans. These assumptions contributed to a series of bitter and violent “range wars,” which broke out from Texas to Montana and framed the appearance of labor conflicts in the region. These social tensions stirred a series of political insurgencies that became virtually endemic to the American West of the Gilded Age. Mark A. Lause explores the relationship between these neglected labor conflicts, the “range wars,” and the third-party movements. The Great Cowboy Strike subverts American mythology to reveal the class abuses and inequalities that have blinded a nation to its true history and nature

Download or read book Holding the Line written by Barbara Kingsolver and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holding the Line, Barbara Kingsolver's first non-fiction book, is the story of women's lives transformed by an a signal event. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, it is part oral history and part social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community. Like Kingsolver's award-winning novels, Holding the Line is a beautifully written book grounded on the strength of its characters. Hundreds of families held the line in the 1983 strike against Phelps Dodge Copper in Arizona. After more than a year the strikers lost their union certification, but the battle permanently altered the social order in these small, predominantly Hispanic mining towns. At the time the strike began, many women said they couldn't leave the house without their husband's permission. Yet, when injunctions barred union men from picketing, their wives and daughters turned out for the daily picket lines. When the strike dragged on and men left to seek jobs elsewhere, women continued to picket, organize support, and defend their rights even when the towns were occupied by the National Guard. "Nothing can ever be the same as it was before," said Diane McCormick of the Morenci Miners Women's Auxiliary. "Look at us. At the beginning of this strike, we were just a bunch of ladies."

Download or read book The Seattle General Strike written by Robert Friedheim and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead—NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!” With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim’s classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city’s labor movement. While Seattle’s strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city’s reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

Download or read book The Great Strike written by Alex Callinicos and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Strike written by Jeremy Brecher and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its original publication in 1972, no book has done as much as Jeremy Brecher's Strike! to bring American labor history to a wide audience. Strike! narrates the dramatic story of repeated, massive, and sometimes violent revolts by ordinary working people in America and tells this exciting hidden history from the point of view of the rank-and-file workers who lived it. In this expanded edition, Brecher brings the story up to date with revised chapters that cover the 40 years since the original edition, placing the problems faced by working people today in the context of 140 years of labor history. A new chapter, "Beyond One-Sided Class War" presents the American minirevolts of the 21st century from the Battle of Seattle to Occupy Wall Street and beyond. Essential reading for anyone interested in the historical or present-day situation of American workers, this updated classic serves as inspiration for organizers, activists, and educators working to revive the labor movement today.

Download or read book Strikers Communists Tramps and Detectives written by Allan Pinkerton and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Solidarity written by Michael Szporer and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty five interviews with workers and intellectual allies of Solidarity.

Download or read book The Homestead Strike written by Paul Kahan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 6, 1892, three hundred armed Pinkerton agents arrived in Homestead, Pennsylvania to retake the Carnegie Steelworks from the company's striking workers. As the agents tried to leave their boats, shots rang out and a violent skirmish began. The confrontation at Homestead was a turning point in the history of American unionism, beginning a rapid process of decline for America’s steel unions that lasted until the Great Depression. Examining the strike’s origins, events, and legacy, The Homestead Strike illuminates the tense relationship between labor, capital, and government in the pivotal moment between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era. In a concise narrative, bolstered by statements from steelworkers, court testimony, and excerpts from Carnegie's writings, Paul Kahan introduces students to one of the most dramatic and influential episodes in the history of American labor.

Download or read book Pittsburgh and the Great Steel Strike of 1919 written by Ryan C. Brown and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Ryan C. Brown details the harrowing days of the Great Steel Strike of 1919 that rocked Pittsburgh and its seemingly impregnable "principality of steel." In 1919, the steel industry of Pittsburgh was on the brink of war. Years of labor strife broke out into open conflict as steel workers launched the biggest strike to date in the United States, paralyzing mills from Youngstown to Johnstown and beyond. Radical unionists, anarchists and Bolshevik sympathizers set bombs, planned for revolution and fought police in violent battles. As the postwar Red Scare began to sweep the nation, federal agents used the strikes as an excuse to comb Pittsburgh's immigrant neighborhoods looking for communists.

Download or read book The Pullman Strike and the Labor Movement in American History written by R. Conrad Stein and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details how a labor dispute in Chicago during 1894 progressed into a strike which held up train service in twenty-seven states.

Download or read book The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons written by William Z. Foster and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Strike written by Jeremy Brecher and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Undelivered written by Philip F. Rubio and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-03-25 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For eight days in March 1970, over 200,000 postal workers staged an illegal "wildcat" strike--the largest in United States history--for better wages and working conditions. Picket lines started in New York and spread across the country like wildfire. Strikers defied court injunctions, threats of termination, and their own union leaders. In the negotiated aftermath, the U.S. Post Office became the U.S. Postal Service, and postal workers received full collective bargaining rights and wage increases, all the while continuing to fight for greater democracy within their unions. Using archives, periodicals, and oral histories, Philip Rubio shows how this strike, born of frustration and rising expectations and emerging as part of a larger 1960s-1970s global rank-and-file labor upsurge, transformed the post office and postal unions. It also led to fifty years of clashes between postal unions and management over wages, speedup, privatization, automation, and service. Rubio revives the 1970 strike story and connects it to today's postal financial crisis that threatens the future of a vital 245-year-old public communications institution and its labor unions.

Download or read book Lawrence and the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike written by Robert Forrant and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporated in 1847 on the banks of the Merrimack River, Lawrence, Massachusetts, was the final and most ambitious of New Englands planned textile-manufacturing cities developed by the Boston-area entrepreneurs who helped launch the American Industrial Revolution. With a dam and canal system to generate power, by 1912 Lawrence led the world in the production of worsted wool cloth. The Pacific Cotton Mills alone had sales of nearly $10 million and had mechanical equipment capable of producing 800 miles of finished textile fabrics every working day. However, industrial growth was accompanied by worsening health, housing, and working conditions for most of the citys workers. These were the root causes that led to the long, sometimes violent struggle between people of diverse ethnic groups and languages and the citys mill owners and overseers. The 1912 strikeknown today as the Bread and Roses Strikebecame a landmark moment in history.