| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877. By David O. Stowell. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xii, 181 pp. Cloth, $31.00, ISBN 0-226-77668-9. Paper, $15.00, ISBN 0-226-77669-7.)

The great railroad strikes of July 1877 were as much community uprisings as labor battles. That has been conventional wisdom since the research and writings of Herbert Gutman. Railwaymen walked off their jobs in anger over announced wage cuts, and their neighbors joined them in protest against the enveloping economic and political powers of the railroads. Labor historians have treated the reasons for the participation of non-railroad employees in vague ways. David O. Stowell perceives specific motivations. The encroachments of rail traffic on city streets, he argues, had been a festering grievance, and the dramatic work stoppages presented community members with opportunities to vent their frustrations. 1

Stowell's study focuses on Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo, New York. In all three cities in decades prior to the great upheaval, complaints had been lodged against the laying of tracks and train passage within city limits. Intraurban railroad transport disrupted the work of carters and teamsters, separated retailers and other small proprietors from their customers, and endangered lives and property. Petitions to local authorities to restrict rail construction and traffic and to implement safety measures normally fell on deaf ears as city officials bowed to the interests of the railroad companies and large-scale manufacturers. . . .

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