![]() ![]() The Pennsylvania Railroad announced that it would reduce wages by another 10 percent effective June 1, 1877, and soon, other eastern railroads announced similar cuts. Railroad workers were laboring at wages a full 35 percent below what they had made before the depression. Another 20 percent was working regular hours the remaining 60 percent worked irregular hours, taking work when it was available. By the end of 1873 alone, more than five thousand businesses-railroad and others-had failed.īy 1877, 20 percent of the entire labor force in the United States was unemployed. Railroad workers suddenly found themselves without jobs: By 1874, five hundred thousand railroad employees were out of work. ![]() With branches closing in New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, railroad construction came to an abrupt halt. ![]() Jay Cooke (1821–1905) had been the chief financier of the railroads. One year earlier, two-thirds of all railroads were unable to pay their stockholders dividends (the amount of money an investor makes off a company). By 1873, there were thousands of miles of railroad tracks going virtually nowhere, at least nowhere that was profitable to shippers or to the railroads themselves. Two-thirds of the track headed west, an area still largely unsettled. In the excitement, railroad tracks were being built in every direction. With the last spike driven into the transcontinental railroad in 1869, America's obsession with the railroad had begun. The root cause of the 1873 depression was the collapse of the mighty railroad, which had overextended itself. The book is also includes a great deal of valuable history about the role of the press, and individual newspapers and reporters in covering sensational trials during this period.In 1873, the United States was in the midst of an economic depression, a period of low production and sales and high rates of unemployment and business failures. The book includes a narrative of national and state politics of the period, and the social history and personalities of a number of key political and social figures prominent in Chicago. Although a murder trial in Idaho is the principal story of this book, a great deal of relevant history and background, including the history of socialism, the labor movement and unions, takes place in Chicago. Anthony, Big Trouble - A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America. Pierce, Bessie Louise, A History of Chicago, 1871-1893, Vol.Bruce, Robert V., 1877: Year of Violence, Bobbs-Merrill Co.Louis, but the lines drawn in these battles remained for a long time. The armed confrontations then moved from Chicago on to St. At the end of the Great Strike, hundreds had been killed, and thousands of federal troops and other armed militia occupied the city. The Board of Trade had 100 volunteers sworn in from its own ranks. Volunteers continued to stream in to be sworn as special civilian officers. Every factory from Chicago Avenue to North Avenue was closed during the height of the strike. Armed confrontations took place on Halsted Street, at Sixteenth Street, on Archer Avenue, Goose Island, at the Burlington Yards, and many other locations. Civil War veterans were also on the street, as were many regular armed police. In the meantime many civilians had organized their employees into armed companies, and had them sworn in as civil police. Mayor Heath then called upon President Hayes to send in six companies of infantry. The First National Guard Regiment was also ready. The Twenty-Second Infantry, weary from long service and a march from Bismarck, marched into the city and bivouacked in a park. Afer hesitating to do so, Mayor Heath called for help from the United States army. The police and armed volunteers confronted the strikers and engaged in pitched battles on the following day. In response business owners and managers, the police, and city officials met at City Hall, armed themselves, and cleared the streets. The strikers then closed the stockyards, construction jobs, manufacturing plants, and other businesses. Strikers, railroad workers and others, proceeded to make the partial freight stoppage complete. Some railroads, anticipating trouble, had moved their rolling stock outside of the city. On July 24, 1877, violent confrontations began in Chicago. ![]()
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