| Triggered by a railroad workers' strike, the Great Strike of 1877 has traditionally been viewed as a "labor rebellion"--a struggle between employers and employees in the context of the nation's first industrial depression. The 1877 crowds have been cast for the most part as a heterogeneous collection of workers, as if the city street of 1877--the focal point of most crowds--was an extension of the point of production. This dissertation challenges the notion that the Strike was chiefly a struggle between employers and employees. A comparative study of the Great Strike in Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, New York, the dissertation examines the behaviour and social composition of the 1877 crowds and the multiplicity of reasons urban residents had to join crowds, stop trains, and attack railroad property.;The Great Strike was in large part a spontaneous rebellion of urban residents against one of the most damaging and disturbing ways they were experiencing capitalist industrialization: the use of city streets by railroads. City streets in mid to late 19th century America served a variety of social and economic functions. The use of streets by railroads brought a wide array of urban residents face to face with the "iron horse" and the disorder, disruption, noise and hazards to life it brought with it. Railroad use of the street killed and injured scores of people every year, obstructed travel and injured commerce.;The use of city streets by railroads generated opposition from many in the urban social structure--property owners, saloon keepers, hackmen, cartmen, merchants and others. Petitions to Common Councils, litigation, and even direct confrontations with railroad construction crews in the years preceding the Strike failed, however, to prevent or mitigate the encroachment of railroads on a vital urban space. In July of 1877, the actions of striking railroad workers sparked a broad attack on railroads by a variety of urban residents. The explosive power of the Great Strike stemmed from grievances generated at workplaces and the hostility railroad corporations created in urban areas via their use of the street. |
