Striking Deaths: Lethal Contestation and the “Exceptional” Character of the American Labor Movement, 1870–1970

Abstract

SummaryThe decades between the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the post-World- War-II institutionalization of organized labor in the US have been impressionistically characterized by labor scholars as the most violent and bloody to be found in any Western, democratic nation. A variety of different forms of labor repression have been identified and studied. Yet because of a lack of systematic data, none have been able to examine directly the incidence and contours of the ultimate form of violent repression in collective contention. We create the conceptual space for pursuing bloodshed and a new data set featuring deaths resulting from labor strikes as a new and promising direction in the American exceptionalism debate and in studies of comparative strikes. Through a painstaking search of the historical record, we produce the first systematic quantitative gauge of striking deaths between 1870 and 1970. These data permit a mapping of fatalities resulting from labor strikes across time, geographical region, and industry. After describing configurations of strike-based mortality, we suggest what these patterned variations may mean and identify additional questions that these data may help resolve in subsequent studies. We urge comparable data collections in other countries that would permit direct comparative-historical assessments of the magnitude and role of bloodshed in different labor movements.