The Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 involved several days of work stoppage and violence in Baltimore, Maryland. It formed a part of the Great Railroad Strike, during which widespread civil unrest spread nationwide following the global depression and economic downturns of the mid-1870s. Strikes broke out along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on July 16, the same day that 10% wage reductions were scheduled.
About Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 in brief
The Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 involved several days of work stoppage and violence in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1877. It formed a part of the Great Railroad Strike, during which widespread civil unrest spread nationwide following the global depression and economic downturns of the mid-1870s. Strikes broke out along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on July 16, the same day that 10% wage reductions were scheduled. Violence erupted in Baltimore on July 20, with police and soldiers of the Maryland National Guard clashing with crowds of thousands gathered throughout the city. In response, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to Baltimore, local officials recruited 500 additional police, and two new national guard regiments were formed. Between 10 and 22 were killed, more than 150 were injured, and many more were arrested. Most strikers quit rather than return to work at the newly reduced wages. The company easily found enough workers to replace the strikers, and under the protection of the military and police, traffic resumed on July 29. The company promised minor concessions at the time, and eventually enacted select reforms later that year. In total, an estimated 100,000 workers participated nationwide in what would become known as the Great railroad Strike or the Great Strikes. The Long Depression, sparked in the United States by the Panic of 1873, had extensive implications for US industry, closing more than a hundred railroads in the first year and cutting construction of new rail lines from 7,500 miles of track in 1872 to 1,600 miles in 1875.
Approximately 18,000 businesses failed between 1873 and 1875, production in iron and steel dropped as much as 45 percent, and a million or more lost their jobs. In 1876, 76 railroad companies went bankrupt or entered receivership in the US alone, and the economic impacts rippled throughout many economic sectors throughout the industrialized world. The number of unemployed along the line was so great, owing to the ongoing economic problems, that the company had no difficulty replacing the absent strikers. The strikers resolved to occupy portions of the rail line, and to stop trains from passing unless the company rescinded the wage cuts. By July 17, the first act of violence emerged in Baltimore: a train was thrown from the tracks at a suburb south of the city and opened a switch south. At around 2: 00am on July 18, a fireman and boxyers and sawyers walked out, demanding a ten percent increase in wages. That same day, hundreds of workers in Baltimore declared a strike, which by that day included brakemen and engineers as well as firemen. According to newspaper reports, 140 of the union’s members in the city had already been striking for higher wages for a week at this point, and their number amounted to 800, while not more than 100 more in Baltimore remained at the work at work. In the worst case, rioting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania left 61 dead and 124 injured. Much of the center was burned, including more than one thousand rail cars destroyed.
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