This lesson allows students the opportunity to examine two primary sources related to the Rail Strike of 1877. Students will be asked to read a handbill announcing the reduction in Baltimore and Ohio rail workers’ wages and develop a hypothesis relating to the events that could result from this decision. Other students will be asked to review a list of the damages to Baltimore and Ohio property and develop a hypothesis relating to the events that could have caused this damage. Finally, students will compare these sources and discuss the Strike of 1877 and its effects on the country.

Objectives

Background

While still mired in the calamitous politics of Reconstruction, the United States during much of the 1870s suffered from economic depression and an increasing tension between social classes. The economic malaise followed a panic on Wall Street in 1873 that sent waves of economic strife across the nation. In the wake of this panic, bankruptcies increased dramatically and businesses closed in droves as the economy collapsed into a depression. In 1874 alone, more than six thousand businesses closed their doors (1). This dramatic downturn swept over most sectors of the newly industrializing economy and hit the railroads particularly hard.

In an effort to minimize the effects of the depression, many of the nation’s railroads engaged in a rate war. The Baltimore and Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York Central, and Erie rail lines quickly set out to reduce their shipping rates to attract business and damage their competitors. The continuous reduction in rates forced the railroads to look for other ways to reduce expenses. They found the answer in the costs associated with labor.

From the standpoint of the rail workers, the impact of the depression was exacerbated by the reduction in both wages and work days implemented by the railroad owners. By 1876 workers for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) averaged wages of four hundred dollars per year, two hundred dollars less than many of their competitors. In addition, many employees had been cut back to two or three days of work per week (2). To add insult to injury, the B&O forced many rail workers to pay their own way home from rail jobs that took them to other cities (3). By 1877 rail workers were discontented and concerned over the devastation the depression had wrought in their lives.

In April of 1877 the railroad corporations consented to end the rate wars that had threatened to destroy them all and instead collectively agreed to reduce workers’ wages (4). On 13 July 1877, John W. Garrett, President of the B&O Railroad, took the lead in this initiative when he announced a 10 percent reduction in wages and, simultaneously, a 10 percent increase in stockholders’ dividends (5). The wage reduction affected all workers making more than a dollar per day and marked the second time since 1873 that the railroad had cut wages. This decision frightened and angered the workers, who launched a rail strike that quickly paralyzed the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

The response to the wage reductions from the B&O brakemen and firemen was quick and decisive. On 16 July 1877, forty disgruntled workers walked off the job at Camden Station in Baltimore and were immediately fired. The effects of the wage cuts and fears of the workers quickly spread along the line to other cities. The same day saw frustrated workers burning and destroying railroad property in Martinsburg, West Virginia (6). By late July, discontent and anger had spread from coast to coast. Pittsburgh, Albany, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Kansas City, St. Louis, and San Francisco all experienced violence and the destruction of property associated with the railroad strike. At its height the strike included over 100,000 workers nationwide (7). The nation’s railroads were shut down and businesses suffered even more than they had from the general economic depression.

By 1 August opposition by federal courts and the deployment of federal troops, coupled with a lack of central organization among the workers, brought the strikes to an end. The month-long series of violent and destructive actions by the rail workers stirred many fears within the public, and some viewed the strike as analogous to the 1871 Paris Commune socialist uprising. Despite these anxieties and the destruction of life and property that occurred, the strike sparked a series of changes in the relationship between labor and management. Locally, the Baltimore and Ohio initiated reforms in 1880 with the creation of the Employees Relief Association. This entity provided death benefits and some medical services for the employees. In 1884 the company followed up with a pension plan for the workers (8). Nationally the strike provided momentum for the Workingman’s political party, and for the labor movement in general. The memory of a paralyzed rail system and the presence of federal troops in American cities highlighted some of the problems that industrialization was creating for American workers.

Procedure

Assessment

Assign students the role of brakemen for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Ask each to make two entries into a daily journal. One entry should occur on 16 July and the other on 1 August. Ask students to reflect on the activities that had taken place in their lives and to emphasize the causes and the effects of the strike. Remind students to provide specific details from the two primary sources they consulted.

Endnotes

1. Nell Irvin Painter, Standing At Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987), 4.

2. Sylvia Gillett, “Camden Yards and the Strike of 1877,” in The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History, ed. Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes, and Linda Zeidman (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 3.

3. Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 341.

4. Ibid.

5. See Source A for this lesson, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Minute Book, prepared by G. F. May, Assistant Secretary, 1910, Vol. J, 11 November, 1868-12 July 1882 (B&O Railroad Museum), 301.

6. See Source B for this lesson, “Statement of Losses and Damages during Strike in July 1877,” Baltimore and Ohio Records (Maryland Historical Society, Manuscripts Department), MS 2090.

7. Philip Foner, The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 (New York: Monad Press, 1977), 8.

8. Gillett, “Camden Yards,” 9.

Bibliography

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Minute Book. Prepared by G. F. May, Assistant Secretary, 1910, Vol. J, 11 November 1868-12 July 1882. B&O Railroad Museum.

Brugger, Robert J. Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Foner, Philip. The Great Labor Uprising of 1877. New York: Monad Press, 1977.

Gillett, Sylvia. “Camden Yards and the Strike of 1877.” In The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History, edited by Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes, and Linda Zeidman. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

Painter, Nell Irvin. Standing At Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987.

Rasmussen, Fred. “100 Died in Bloody Rail Strike.” Baltimore Sun, 5 September 1998.

“Statement of Losses and Damages during Strike in July 1877.” Baltimore and Ohio Records. Maryland Historical Society, Manuscripts Department, MS 2090.

Yearley, Clifton K., Jr. “The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Strike of 1877.” Maryland Historical Magazine 61, no. 3 (September 1956): 188-211.

Bruce Lesh teaches history at Catonsville High School in Catonsville, Maryland. He is the founder and director of the Maryland Council for History Education.

Source A

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company
Office of the President
Baltimore, July 11, 1877

To the Officers and Employees of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, held this day, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:

WHEREAS- The depression in the general business interests of the country continues, thus seriously affecting the usual earnings of railway companies, and rendering a further reduction of expenses necessary; therefore be it

RESOLVED- That a reduction of ten per cent, be made in the present compensation of all officers and employees of every grade, in the service of the Company, where the amount received exceeds one dollar per day, to take effect on and after July 16th, instant.

RESOLVED- That the said reduction shall apply to the Main Stem and Branches east of the Ohio River, and to the Trans-Ohio Divisions, and that it shall embrace all roads leased or operated by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.

It is hoped and believed that all persons in the service of the Company will appreciate the necessity of, and concur cordially in, this action.

The Board postponed action until some time after its great competitors, the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and Hudson River, and New York, and Erie Companies, had made general and similar reductions in pay, with the hope that business would so improve that this necessity would be obviated. In this they have been disappointed.

The President, in announcing the decision of the Board, takes occasion to express the conviction and expectation that every officer and man in the service, will cheerfully recognize the necessity of the reduction, and earnestly co-operate in every measure of judicious economy, necessary to aid in maintaining effectively the usefulness and success of the Company.

John W. Garrett
President

Source: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Minute Book, prepared by G. F. May, Assistant Secretary, 1910, Vol. J, 11 November 1868-12 July 1882, 305.

Worksheet A

Examine Source A and answer the questions completely. Be sure to provide specific facts and direct quotations from the source to support your answers.

• What decision was made by the board?
• What reasons were provided to support this decision?
• Who was affected by the decision?
• How did the president attempt to disperse blame for this decision?
• Summarize what you learned from the source:
• Develop a hypothesis based on the information contained in the source: What could be the possible results from this decision?

Worksheet B

Examine Source B and answer the questions completely. Be sure to provide specific facts or direct quotations from the source to support your answers.

• What items were damaged:
• How did the damage occur?
• What was the total monetary damage?
• Summarize what you learned from the source:
• Develop a hypothesis based on the information contained in the source: What could have caused this destruction?