officers were sent in to stop the riots. The main leaders of the protest were now being arrested, and the strike began to fail rapidly. In the end, the strike slowly diminished and on August 2nd, the Pullman works reopened. The Pullman strike went down to be one of the largest strikes in U.S. history.
But, even though Pullman didn’t make any changes, the strike influenced that way the public viewed worker’s rights and the role of management and mediation of labor unions. Before government intervention, the public’s opinion about supporting the strike was split. The western and southern part of America generally supported the strike while the east generally opposed it (H.W.). But people began to question the amount of control of the government after President Cleveland sent in troops to shut down the strikes. 30 died and 57 were injured (Lawrence). Using military forces to union bust was a milestone in American history. Besides the Homestead strike two years earlier, the Pullman strike was first to be shut down violently by the military (Levitt). After these event, public opinion changed. The majority did not support the government and Pullman, and when Pullman died in 1897, people were said to have desecrated his body
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike
In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The Newark uprising of 1967 was the result of many different forms of injustices directed against the black community in Newark. Police brutality was one of the major factors that contributed to the people’s uprising. When governor Hughes appointed a committee to investigate the causes of the uprising and the ways to improve the relationship between the police and the Newark’s community, there were many testimonies and evidences that proved that police brutality was one of the major causes leading to the uprising. Despite all the data and the evidences that the Governor’s Commission Report (GSCCD) included and the testimonies of many people that witnessed the uprising, the Report of the New Jersey State Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) rejected the findings to the Governor’s Commission Report and claimed that police brutality was just a stereotype in the African American neighborhoods. They suggested that the main reason that caused the uprising was the “weakness of official response” (PBA Report ix) to criminal acts done by members of the black community. This paper will focus mainly on assessing the arguments made by the PBA report and comparing them with the GSCCD report and the testimonies of the witnesses of the uprising.
The 1960s was a time for change. It promoted on going expectations of equality for all races. This proved to be difficult for minorities. In August of 1965, civil unrest broke out, which lead to six-day revolt called the Watts Riot. Nearly thirty years later another riot broke out which caused even greater damage and left an even greater impact in our history, the Rodney King Riots. Both of these events share similar qualities and devastating damages, however, their meanings are much harder to decipher from one another. These impactful events in our society demonstrate how much there needs to change in our society, especially when dealing with minorities.
This investigation assesses the New York City Stonewall Riots of 1969, concerning their influence on the rise of the modern gay rights movement, specifically regarding political emergence, social unity, and demographic shifts. The investigation will attempt to answer the following question: To what extent were the Stonewall Riots of 1969 a catalyst for the LGBT social movement in America?
Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States. George Pullman cut his railroad workers wages in regards of economic depression. The workers organized a strike, but soon enough they realized they needed additional help. Famed labor union Eugene V. Debs helped to establish an organization to create a national movement. After the railroad workers resorted to destructiveness it gained favor, which, it was brought to the attention of the attorney general. The Pullman Strike is widely seen to have reached the maximums because of George Pullman’s uncompromising and unsympathetic attitude towards his employee’.
The Labor Unions organized various strikes in an attempt to improve labor conditions and rights. The strikes became increasingly more violent and the media merged the violence with radicalism, communism and anarchism. The political cartoon suggests that Labor Unions are killing capitalism with communism, the radical violence tainting the image of the Labor Unions and shifted the public support; focused on the Great Rail Road Strike of 1877 and the radical violence (Document 2). Following the Great Strike of 1877, the Haymarket Square Riot sparked further controversy towards the acts of violence. The Haymarket Square Riot and Bombing involved the Knights of Labor and advocated a violent overthrow of the American government. The Chicago police had been called to end the protest and in the chaos a bomb was thrown, injuring and killing several dozen people. After the Haymarket Square Riot, a gradual repression of the labor movement occurred. The public lost trust in the worker's associations and the campaign. The American labor movement, in general, received a setback due to the riot, also weakening the struggle for the eight-hour day demand. The Homestead Strike and Lockout of 1892 was one of the most violent strikes; the riot was ended by Pinkerton Detectives and the state militia, and the violence further damaged the image of unions. The purpose of the
George Pullman was not always believed to be a cruel boss. George Pullman started off believing that anyone could be successful if they worked hard enough. But as his business grew, he took this belief too far, furthering his own company by working his employees hard, treating his employees like slaves. There were many factors included in how the Pullman strike started. George Pullman and the company’s treatment of employees, how the town of Pullman, Illinois reacted to their treatment, other strikes that led up to the Pullman employee unhappiness and their reaction, the Pullman Strike.
Strikers were blacklisted and put on a do not hire list to prevent them from working again The aftermath of this even was to create the National Guard, whose main purpose is to enforce order at home and protect Americans against foreign threats
Protests riots in the United States has proven to an issue for both the country’s financial strength and the unity of the nation. With the presence of social injustices, combined with the increased impact of social media propaganda, protests riots are beginning to reach an all time high. Protest riots destroy individual communities and businesses, jeopardizes the safety of others and taints the protest’s cause by resorting to civil disobedience. Action must be done in order to prevent these random acts of violence from continuing after every social hot topic. The goal is not to prevent citizens from protesting; in fact, this should be encouraged. The goal is to change the way the protests are handled from both the citizens and authority perspectives, in order to prevent these protests from escalating into something dangerous.
There were 3 significant strikes; the Great Railroad Strike 1877, Homestead Strike 1892, and the Pullman Strike 1894. Each one fighting an unfair inequality against the American citizens and workers. Railroad strike lasted 45 days, causing millions in lost property damage and lost revenue because there was an economic panic around the time to wages being cut. The Homestead strike had to have 300 Pinkerton Guards hired to remove them from Carnegie steal, they were holding a sit in protesting their 80hr work weeks, dangerous conditions, and wages. And last was the Pullman strike in which workers were protesting their wages being cut but still being forced to live in a company town in which the prices of food/housing remained the same. This turned into a nationwide strike and was considered the worst economic panic up to that point. While these companies were doing great things for the US, creating railroads to connect the east and west coast, and their own steel, there were still injustices hiding underneath all the money that the owners and government constantly overlooked.
In 1894 workers participated in a widespread strike and boycott against the Pullman Palace Car Company, a U.S. company that made and ran passenger railroad cars. For a time, the Pullman Strike essentially stopped the railroads from running in much of the western part of the country. An antitrust law—a law intended to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition—was ultimately used to end this
There were even a few states that passed legislation recognizing it. However, Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later when a moment in American labor history brought the worker’s rights into public view. On May 11, 1892, Pullman Palace Car Company’s employees in Chicago went on strike to protest the wage cuts and the firing of the union representatives. On June 26, led by Eugene V. Debs, the American Railroad Union called for a boycott of the Pullman railway cars (Labor Day, 2010). This was going to hurt the railroad traffic nationwide. The federal government dispatched troops to Chicago to break the strike. This caused deaths in more than 12 workers. After several days of unrest and trying to repair ties with the American workers, Congress passed an act that made Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the surrounding
The Homestead Movement was ultimately was ineffective because no inconsequential change occurred due to the violence of this movement. In 1892, Eugene V. Debs formed the American Railway Union, which resulted in one of the largest strikes in American history: the Pullman Strike (Ushistory.org). When workers repudiated to capitulate the pay cut in their checks, the Pullman Car Company fired 500 employees. Debs and members of the American Railway Union boycotted trains that used Pullman cars. On July 4, mobs started to tip over rail cars using fireworks since the federal troops sent in by President Grover Cleveland to handle the situation (Ladd). “This burning and rioting came to a zenith on July 6, when fires caused by some 6,000 rioters destroyed 700 railcars and caused $340,000 of damages in the South Chicago Panhandle yard” (Hofstader). Ultimately, the violence used in the Pullman Movement proved ineffective in attaining social change because the worker’s pay was not rehabilitated. The Labor Force Movements were more effective, however, in attaining social change compared to the Homestead and Pullman violent Strikes. The Labor Movements brought a halt to child labor, and gave health benefits, and aid to retired or injured workers. One of the hallmarks of the Labor Movement, are the strikes formed in which many workers