July 14, 1877: The Great Railroad Strike

July 14, 1877: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, begins in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (a.k.a. the B&O) cut wages for the 3rd time in a year.

Because of economic problems and pressure on wages by the railroads, workers in numerous other cities, in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, into Illinois and Missouri, also went out on strike. An estimated 100 people were killed in the unrest across the country. In Martinsburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other cities, workers burned down and destroyed both physical facilities and the rolling stock of the railroads (engines and railroad cars). Local populations feared that workers were rising in revolution such as the Paris Commune of 1871.

At the time, the workers were not represented by trade unions. The city and state governments were aided by unofficial militias, the National Guard, federal troops and private militias organized by the railroads, who all fought against the workers. Disruption was widespread and at its height, the strikes were supported by about 100,000 workers.

With the intervention of federal troops in several locations, most of the strikes were suppressed by early August. Labor continued to work to organize into unions to work for better wages and conditions. Fearing the social disruption, many cities built armories to support the local National Guard units; these defensive buildings still stand as symbols of the effort to suppress the labor unrest of this period.

The strike ended on September 4, 52 days after it began, after it was put down by unofficial militias, the National Guard, and federal troops.

The use of federal troops prompted bipartisan support for the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, limiting the 

power of the president to use federal troops for domestic law enforcement.

With public attention on workers' wages and conditions, the B&O in 1880 founded an Employee Relief Association to provide death benefits and some health care. In 1884, it established a worker pension plan. Other improvements were implemented later.

*

July 14, 1877 was a Saturday. The only professional sports league in North America at the time was baseball's National League. And only 2 games were played that day. The Hartford Blues beat the Chicago White Stockings, 9-4 at the Union Grounds in Chicago. And the St. Louis Brown Stockings beat the Boston Red Stockings, 10-3 at an early version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

The Blues and the Brown Stockings both went out of business after the season. These St. Louis Brown Stockings bear no connection to the later teams to use the name: The American Association and later NL team that's now the Cardinals, or the American League team that became the Baltimore Orioles.

The Chicago White Stockings went through some name changes before becoming the Cubs in 1903, with an AL team having already assumed the White Stockings, later White Sox, name. And the Boston Red Stockings went through a few name changes as well, before becoming the Braves in 1912, then moving to Milwaukee in 1953 and Atlanta in 1966.