Great+Railroad+Strike+of+1877

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A). This strike jolted the nation and began when managers of the four largest railroads met and agreed to slash wages, on top of a series of cuts already made over the previous three years. When the Baltimore & Ohio announced reductions of 10 percent, workers in West Virginia walked off the job, followed by railmen all over the East Coast and as far away as St. Louis and Chicago. Within days the strike shut down the transportation system. Ironworkers, dockworkers, and thousands of others gathered in the street to join the revolt including masons, blacksmiths, clerks, merchants, and even a stove manufacturer. Eventually President Rutherford Hayes called in U.S. troops to get the trains running and mob actions resulted with the killing of eleven people. The strike served to expose the widening chasm between Affluent Americans and those who identified with the working classes.

B. My nomination is the Maryland State Archieves website found at [] I picked this site because it includes National History Standards for Grades 5-12 as well as Primary Resources, Additional Media Resources, and Additional Instructional Resources and Secondary Resources.

C. A primary source available online is the University of Pittsburgh Library website at [|www.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy/rrstrike1877.html] The site includes primary source materials in the form of digitalized original photos of the strike each of which is listed that would help students get a sense for the massive scope and extent of this event.

D. Using photos and content about the strike's affect in other parts of the country, I would ask students to compare and contast how the striked played itself out in different states and locals and to speculate why there were variations as to how the strike affected different areas.