David O. Stowell, Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 168 pp. $31.00 cloth; $15.00 paper; Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist, and Nick Salvatorem, eds., The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890s: Essays on Labor and Politics. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999. 288 pp. $49.95 cloth; $18.95

Abstract

Two explosions in US working-class history are the focus of the volumes under review. The first pre-dated the emergence of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), many of whose tough-minded organizers were in the process of emerging from the Marxist-influenced First International. AFL chief Samuel Gompers referred to the 1877 labor upsurge in this way: “Made desperate by the accumulation of miseries, without organizations strong enough to conduct a successful strike, the railway workers rebelled. Their rebellion was a declaration of protest in the name of American manhood against conditions that nullified the rights of American citizens. The railroad strike of 1877 was the tocsin that sounded a ringing message of hope to us all.”