Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, July 14th, 1877, the beginnings of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

Railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia responded to a 10% pay cut by declaring that no trains would leave Martinsburg until pay was restored.

They gathered at the rail yard to protest and they were joined by local townspeople in solidarity as well.

By the end of July, this small strike had spread throughout the country into the Midwest, Chicago,

Ohio, into the northeast, cities like Albany and Buffalo and Newark.

A hundred thousand workers participated in the Great Railroad strike of

1877 at the height of which more than half the freight on the country's tracks had

come to a halt.

And this is in many ways obviously a story of the rise of the rail industry

and connectivity in this country, but this is also what we could call

the first strike in a mass strike era, something that would happen a lot in this era and doesn't seem to happen that much these days.

So lots to discuss around what is also known as the great upheaval of 1877 here as always are Nicole Hammer of

Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. One minor observation as I look into this story. It's called the Great Road

Strike of 1877 great name straightforward. You know what it is. The great

upheaval is like pretty like that's like wow you're going to call this the

great upheaval and then I will what we'll get into it but you know this is also

related to what sometimes referred to is the long depression which is compared to the great depression and obviously

we have the so as historians do you it just seems to me like obviously you don't know what's coming

down the line in the future. But calling a railroad strike in

...