United States, heartily sympathize with the employes of all the railroads in the country who are attempting to secure just and equitable reward for their labor. Resolved, That we, the workingmen's party of the ![]() Whereas, The United States government has allied itself on the side of capital and against labor therefore, After several more speeches, they further clarified the demands by adopting a series of resolutions: ![]() A third meeting was held that night, in Turner's hall, limited to railroad workers. The enthusiastic crowd supported various speakers who expressed their sympathy and solidarity with the workers. Following this initial meeting, a subsequent outdoor meeting was held, with about 200 members of the Workingmen's Party in attendance. Louis, Illinois, on July 22, train workers held a secret meeting, resolved to call for an increase in wages, and strike if their demands were not met. In total, an estimated 100,000 workers participated nationwide. What began as the peaceful actions of organized labor attracted the masses of discontented and unemployed workers spawned by the depression, along with others who took opportunistic advantage of the chaos. Much of the city's center was burned, including more than a thousand rail cars destroyed. In the worst case, rioting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania left 61 dead and 124 injured. Louis, Missouri and a short lived uprising in Chicago, Illinois. Violence began in Martinsburg, West Virginia and spread along the rail lines through Baltimore and on to several major cities and transportation hubs of the time, including Reading, Scranton and Shamokin, Pennsylvania a bloodless general strike in St. In mid-1877, tensions erupted in stoppages and civil unrest across the nation in what would become known as the Great Railroad Strike or the Great Strikes. In 1876, 76 railroad companies went bankrupt or entered receivership in the US alone, and the economic impacts rippled throughout many economic sectors throughout the industrialized world. Approximately 18,000 businesses failed between 18, production in iron and steel dropped as much as 45 percent, and a million or more lost their jobs. The Long Depression, sparked in the United States by the Panic of 1873, had extensive implications for US industry, closing more than a hundred railroads in the first year and cutting construction of new rail lines from 7,500 miles (12,100 km) of track in 1872 to 1,600 miles (2,600 km) in 1875. Main article: Long Depression Growth rates of industrial production (1850s–1913) Teachers ( AZ, CO, Los Angeles, NC, OK, WV) 2018–2019.The strike showed that West Virginia authorities were ill-prepared to handle unrest among laboring groups and led to calls, mostly unheeded, for development of a professional national guard to control labor disturbances. The federal troops were successful in ending the violence at Martinsburg, and the strike ended later in the summer of 1877. Mathews went to Martinsburg on July 18, and the federal troops arrived the next day. Hayes for federal troops to preserve order. Mathews sent another militia unit from Wheeling to the scene, and when the Wheeling unit also proved unable to handle the strikers he called upon President Rutherford B. The militia then withdrew and refused to take further action against the strikers. A striker fired upon the militiamen and was mortally wounded by return fire. ![]() The unit was assigned to guard a train that attempted to leave the railroad yard in Martinsburg. Consequently, the militiamen were subjected to extreme pressure from relatives and fellow workers. Faulkner Jr., and was made up largely of volunteers who were railroad workers themselves or related to railroad workers. Governor Mathews quickly mobilized the militia company in Martinsburg to control the strikers. The first violence occurred in West Virginia, when strikers in Martinsburg attempted to stop trains from running. The pay cut exacerbated earlier wage cuts, and the railroad firemen’s union called a strike which soon spread along the rails from Baltimore to Chicago. In response, the railroad announced a ten percent pay cut for all employees. The Panic of 1877, a national economic recession, had a disastrous effect on the earnings of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
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