Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line by Scott Molloy

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 255 Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design ofAmerican Company Towns (London and New York: Verso, 1995) and numerous articles dealing with company towns, industrial housing, and labor relations. Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on theLine. By Scott Molloy. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996. Pp. xvii+238, illustra­ tions, notes, index. $36.50 (cloth). The advent of electric streetcars in the 1890s was a technological advancement that radically altered the urban experience. Indeed, electrification of street railways not only reshaped the urban land­ scape, transporting more patrons for greater distances at increased speeds, it also fostered new work patterns for streetcar workers and social problems for the local polity. Ideological and economic con­ flicts over the purpose and nature of the street railway business pit­ ted streetcar workers, politicos, small business owners, and other citi­ zens against huge transit concerns. As a result, numerous intense, often violent streetcar strikes occurred in many American cities at the turn of the century. In this respect, Scott Molloy’s case study of the development of public transit in Rhode Island, Trolley Wars, is aptly named. He contends that the development of public transpor­ tation was nothing less than a prolonged struggle for ultimate con­ trol of city streets and city government, fought in courts, at the ballot box, in local councils and state legislatures, and in the streets them­ selves. In many ways, Molloy relates a classic story of labor history. Horsecar street railway service commenced in Providence on Wash­ ington’s birthday in 1865. For the first two decades of service, labor relations between the locally owned Union Railroad Company (URC) and its workers were mutually respectful and financially re­ warding for both parties. Much like early craftworkers, streetcar driv­ ers and conductors performed their duties within a flexible set of work rules and developed personal relationships with their custom­ ers, who were often friends and neighbors. But the political and so­ cial culture of transit radically changed in the 1890s when electric trolleys replaced horsepowered cars and a large transit monopoly from another state gained control of the URC. Streetcar work be­ came highly regimented and a two-tier wage system was imposed which favored veteran drivers. Moreover, the tremendous increase in the scale of Rhode Island’s street railway system depersonalized service, causing great public animosity while labor relations deterio­ rated. Finally, members of the fledgling Division 200 of the Amal­ gamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America called a strike inJune 1902. Despite widespread support from the citizenry ofProvidence and Pawtucket, as well as the latter city’s reform mayor John J. Fitzgerald, the strikers lost the battle. Conservative political 256 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE forces won the war, and control of public transit in Rhode Island remained the prerogative of the URC. This book is largely a study of Rhode Island’s labor and urban political history, but those who are interested in the social ramifica­ tions of technology will also find it a useful work. The specifics of instituting electric streetcars, their technological profiles, and ac­ companying infrastructural changes are not addressed; instead, elec­ trification is investigated as a political and social issue. Molloy does not break new ground in this area, but he does provide additional evidence to support the work of Sam BassWarner and KennethJackson . In particular, his chapter titled “The Trolley Habit” is a suc­ cinct, extremely thoughtful discussion regarding the effect of elec­ tric street railways upon the urbanization process in Rhode Island. It details the flurry of land speculation and swift suburban develop­ ment that coincided with the expansion of streetcar service, and the tremendous changes in the nature of streetcar work caused by tech­ nological advancement. Perhaps most informative is his understand­ ing of the development of heightened public expectations of and animosity toward transit interests during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the impact of these social perceptions upon the poli­ tics of transit. Trolley Wars is an insightful and clearly written volume. While it is not pathbreaking in scope, Molloy’s exhaustive research provides ample evidence to support his claim that the development of urban mass transportation in Rhode...