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Railroad Strike Dbq

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Railroad Strike of 1877 1877 In the late nineteenth century, the railroad industry was booming. But it’s growth was followed by labor arguments, including the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This strike was the first major rail strike, and it was disputed with enough violence to bring in various state militias. The Strike began when northern railroads cut salaries and wages because they still felt the impact of the Panic of 1873. The cuts were met with strikes and violence, but the railroads fought back with even more pay cuts, like the Pennsylvania Railroad lowering all wages by ten percent. A few months later, the same rail line decided it would double the length of all eastbound trains but kept the same amount of workers. The employees …show more content…

For the railroad workers, the strike represented a chance to express their grievances toward their employers. By destroying equipment, disrupting rail services, and rioting, they fought for their wages, hours, and working conditions.The employers viewed that the differences between them and their workers increased after the Panic of 1873, and pay cuts in 1877 pushed many of the workers to form a strike. The government viewed the strike as a violent disruption to the railroads, their biggest industry at the time. They showed this when they helped employers by sending in federal troops to stop the protests, and ended the chance for workers to gain concessions from their employers. The Railroad strike showed how the disputes between workers and employers could no longer be localized in the new economy, and the deep resentment that workers had toward their employers. The failure of this strike greatly weakened the railroad unions and reputation of labor …show more content…

The changes that were seen after the act was put into law included the end of the communal holding of property by the Native Americans. They would fractionated into individual plots of property, which caused more than half of their lands to be sold off. Women were not given any land under this act, and had to be married to receive the full 160 acres offered. While the Act was supposed to help the Indians, many resisted the changes that came with individual property ownership. They thought that becoming ranchers and farmers was distasteful. Children were also forced away from their families and into boarding schools to try and assimilate them. While many things changed due to this Act, some things continued to stay the same. Despite the massive amounts of land that was taken from them, the goal of assimilation did not take the effect that the government hoped. Efforts to end Indian religious rituals and to spread the idea of Christianity did not affect Native Americans like it was thought it. Instead, the overall discontent that the Indians had toward forced assimilation caused its

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879 Words | 4 Pages

The Government believed then, that the Native Americans would not sell the land and return to their reservations. The American Indian became an American citizen as soon as he received his allotment. the Act also declared that Indians could become citizens if they had separated from their tribes and adopted the ways of civilized life, without ending their rights to tribal or other property.

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

While the railroad construction began long before the 1860’s, the major push for the transcontinental ability was completed in 1869, as the final

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1127 Words | 5 Pages

these were years of Native American change. Though the legislature was goal was to drive tribes onto reservations and let them make sense of another lifestyle all alone, numerous Native Americans were not in agreeance. They organized into associations and rights groups and worked together toward one main goals, which was to convince the government to pass enactment that would ensure and help Native Americans Assimilate. By the year 1871, through many efforts on boths side it was clear that sending tribes to live on reservations was not a successful solution to the government 's dilemma.

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199 Words | 1 Pages

More indians tribes were destroyed during war with the whites, and since the Native Americans did not have as much technology, food, and medicine as the whites, they lost a lot of warriors. Many Native Americans would leave their tribes in search for food only to be confronted and ambushed by white soldiers. Some Native Americans chose to surrender rather than to be moved to a different location. After the Indian and American War, the General Allotment Act was passed, also known as The Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes Act granted Native Americans land allotments.

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408 Words | 2 Pages

The organized labor of 1875-1900 was unsuccessful in proving the position of workers because of the future strikes, and the intrinsical feeling of preponderation of employers over employees and the lack of regime support. In 1877, railroad work across the country took part in a cyclopean strike that resulted in mass violence and very few reforms. An editorial, from the Incipient York Time verbalized: "the strike is ostensibly hopeless, and must be regarded as nothing more than a rash and splenetic demonstration of resentment by men too incognizant or too temerarious to understand their own interest" (Document B). In 1892, workers at the Homestead steel plant near Pittsburg ambulated out on strike and mass chaos the lives of at least two Pinkerton detectives and one civilian, among many other laborers death (Document G).

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1261 Words | 6 Pages

The Pullman Strike also had an impact on transporting people and goods. This was a problem because back then trains were a main source of transportation. Nowadays, there are additional means of transportation, such as trucks and

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988 Words | 4 Pages

However, the economic crises in 1837 collapsed the labor unions because of economic hard times, and with immigrants coming in surplus willing to work for cheap, regular people could not compete and thus had to work at the beckon of the factories. Labor unions worked when the economy was resilient, but when the economy was shocked, everyone was too afraid of demanding more when there were those willing to work for

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158 Words | 1 Pages

I think President Theodore Roosevelt was worried about the strike because of its potential to expand into a social war. President Theodore Roosevelt responded by calling a meeting in Washington to discuss the problem. He asked for immediate resumption in the coal mines to meet the needs of the people. I believe that owners do not have the right to do business with unfair wages and dangerous working conditions. Many people believe that which was the reason for the coal strike because the workers wanted higher wages and shorter work days.

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657 Words | 3 Pages

Paired with inexperienced workers this led to disaster and more deaths than expected. Indian Wars. The railroad was a big threat for indians so when they were faced with this they took up arms and bows. Many attacks and battles where had until military protection was granted leading to the death of an uncountable amount of people and to add the the fear rituals would be taken out where everyone could see making this a truly justified

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784 Words | 4 Pages

During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the

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1399 Words | 6 Pages

Such as a strike that happened in 1877; the strike had failed to be successful when the government has authorized the approval of police force resulting in strikers being killed and workers beginning to arm themselves for protection. Since employers continually turned a deaf ear to union demands, and unions saw a need to push harder to get the desired results.

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459 Words | 2 Pages

By 1900, Native Americans had lost half of the land that had been originally given to them. Meanwhile, the farming and assimilating of Native Americans was not successful. By many accounts, Indians were not adjusting to neither their new family dynamic nor farming. The Cheyennes had to learn how to plough, plant, and harvest their new aired properties. One Sioux recalled the struggle men especially had of being stripped of his previous purpose, hunting buffalo, and his tribe, with whom he hunted with.

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

In a time after the Civil War, when a transcontinental railroad was created connecting the East and West, people began to move and settle across the country, creating new urban cities and manufacturing hubs. It was because of the railroad that the Second Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age took place which rapidly increased the manufacturing of products through the new machines in factories and the spread of ideas by the telegraph and railroad. It was in this context that many farmers, as well, began to move West and experience a loss in the prices of their crops. It is also in this context that many workers were forced to work long, laborious hours with little pay. Farmers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age by forming organizations such as the Granger movement and the Farmers Alliance as well as creating the Populist Party.

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812 Words | 4 Pages

The time period from when the Second Industrial Revolution was beginning, up until President McKinley’s assassination in 1901, is known as the Gilded Age. After the Civil War, many people headed out West to pursue agriculture, and many immigrants moved to urban areas to acquire jobs in industrial factories. It is in this context that farmers and industrial workers had to respond to industrialization. Two significant ways farmers and industrial workers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age, were creating the Populist Party and the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

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1038 Words | 5 Pages

Strikes were executed more by the industrial workers, but the farmers did have a few. Strikes were common during the Gilded Age because as industrialization increased, working conditions and labor requirements got worse. The industrial workers were having to work ten to twelve hours, five days a week at the least and not even being paid enough to compensate for their work. Barely scraping by with the amount of work the workers do for their company angered them, and prompted strikes. Some well-known strikes are the Pullman Strike and the Homestead Strike.

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