Couvares, Saxton, Grob, and Billias argue that the constant argument over past events constitutes history, yet one particular event has received little argument over the past 140 years. Many historians agree that economic factors caused the Great Strike of 1877, that the Strike represented a sharp break with the past, and that railroad workers led the Strike entirely. After his dissertation research unearthed documents that suggested otherwise, David O. Stowell began investigating the Great Strike. Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 expressly rebuts a few common misunderstandings of the Great Strike. Stowell combines evidence from three distinct cities, Syracuse, Albany, and Buffalo, to argue that the railroad workers and their
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Very few primary accounts exist regarding the makeup of the striking crowds, and the ones that do exist provide little detail. While the strikers prohibited reporters from attending their meetings, plenty of members met with the media afterwards, and their accounts offer information apropos of the crowds’ composition. Many historians assume that, just because railroad workers started the strike over recently enforced wage cuts, the strike only consisted of railroad workers. Stowell argues against such a claim. Instead, using newspaper reports and local government tallies, he depicts a much different crowd. Stowell proves that the Great Strike also included workers of other industries, women, children, men without jobs, and even some middle-class, non-industrial business …show more content…
To refute the claim that the Strike targeted railroad companies for purely thematic reasons, such as their embodiment of the Industrial Age, David Stowell focuses on the site of the strike activities. He claims that, had the perpetrators of the Great Strike actually vilified the railroads in such a way, then they would not have limited their activities to the deadliest and most problematic of railway crossings in city streets. Stowell uses Syracuse, NY to prove this theory. Very little rail traffic passed through Syracuse because of the two-line freight bypass around the city, but the bypass itself led to concentrated rail lines right outside of the city. If the Great Strike represented an attack on the railroads as an incarnation of Industrialization, then Syracuse’s strike would have focused its efforts on the bypass outside of the city. Instead, the men and women of Syracuse leveled their attention on the few railroads that used city streets, accentuating the true cause of the Great
Very few primary accounts exist regarding the makeup of the striking crowds, and the ones that do exist provide little detail. While the strikers prohibited reporters from attending their meetings, plenty of members met with the media afterwards, and their accounts offer information apropos of the crowds’ composition. Many historians assume that, just because railroad workers started the strike over recently enforced wage cuts, the strike only consisted of railroad workers. Stowell argues against such a claim. Instead, using newspaper reports and local government tallies, he depicts a much different crowd. Stowell proves that the Great Strike also included workers of other industries, women, children, men without jobs, and even some middle-class, non-industrial business …show more content…
To refute the claim that the Strike targeted railroad companies for purely thematic reasons, such as their embodiment of the Industrial Age, David Stowell focuses on the site of the strike activities. He claims that, had the perpetrators of the Great Strike actually vilified the railroads in such a way, then they would not have limited their activities to the deadliest and most problematic of railway crossings in city streets. Stowell uses Syracuse, NY to prove this theory. Very little rail traffic passed through Syracuse because of the two-line freight bypass around the city, but the bypass itself led to concentrated rail lines right outside of the city. If the Great Strike represented an attack on the railroads as an incarnation of Industrialization, then Syracuse’s strike would have focused its efforts on the bypass outside of the city. Instead, the men and women of Syracuse leveled their attention on the few railroads that used city streets, accentuating the true cause of the Great