Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877

David O. Stowell. Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.

The Great Strike of 1877 has long served as an important "periodizational" function, providing a dramatic break between the Reconstruction era (which formally ended that same year with the deal which put Hayes in the White House) and the Gilded Age. Given the degree to which the Gilded Age was marked by frequent labor strife and intermittent major strikes, the neatness of this temporal demarcation is almost too good to be true.

But while the utility of the Great Strike as a milestone event is nearly impossible to argue with, David Stowell argues that traditional interpretations of the Great Strike as a spontaneous outbreak of working-class unity should not be accepted as settled fact. He argues that while traditional interpretations have approached the strike from a labor history perspective, the widespread public support generated by the original railroad strike wasn't necessarily a matter of working class solidarity.

He compares three Erie Canal cities--Buffalo Syracuse, and Albany--which experienced different levels of intensity, violence, and public support. By comparing reports and arrest records with maps, he regards the Great Strike from the perspective of urban history and also spatial history, he persuasively argues a counter-narrative in which most participants in the Great Strike were local residents and business owners who wanted to resist the intrusion of railroads into urban spaces and streets. Railroads were a constant menace to safety and quality of life, and they had on often detrimental effect on local economic activity as well.

Stowell acknowledges that his argument is somewhat speculative, but then again he points out that the traditional labor history interpretations relied largely on statements, speeches, and rhetorical assumptions.