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Great Southwest Railroad Strike
Hundreds of thousands of workers across five states refused to work, citing unsafe conditions and unfair hours and pay. The strike suffered from a lack of commitment from other railroad unions, the successful hiring of nonunion workers by Gould and from violence and scare tactics. Eventually, the strike failed and the Knights of Labor disbanded soon afterwards -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. It was named for Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who was a chairman of the Senate finance committee and the Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes. -
Homestead Strike
Homestead strike in Pennsylvania and the ensuing bloody battle instigated by the steel plant's management remain a transformational moment in U.S. history, leaving scars that have never fully healed after five generations. -
The Pullman Strike
Soon enough, 250,000 industry workers joined in the strike, effectively shutting down train traffic to the west of Chicago. The strike ended when President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago on July 6, 1894. However, widespread sympathy for the workers cause promoted prounion sentiment across many areas of the country. -
The Battle of Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek had become a boom town after gold was discovered. Some 150 mines sprang up. So did a strong miners union—the Free Coinage Union No. 19, which was part of the militant Western Federation of Miners -
Great Anthracite Coal Strike
At the turn of the last century, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) began a strike that threatened to create an energy crisis. Seeking better wages and conditions, the union went on strike in eastern Pennsylvania, an area that contained the majority of the nations supply of anthracite coal. -
McKees Rock Strike: Turning Point for Immigrant Workers
Eugene V. Debs, arguably the foremost union activist in American history, described the 1909 McKees Rock, Pa., strike this way: "The greatest labor fight in all my history in the labor movement." Yet today, few remember this struggle when immigrant workers rose up and changed the course of American unionism. -
Uprising of 20,000 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Firefighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. In a half an hour, the fire was over, and 146 of the 500 workers—mostly young women—were dead. -
Steel Strike
The number of strikers quickly grew to 350,000, shutting down nearly half of the steel industry. Company owners, however, invoked public concerns over communism and immigration as a way of turning public sentiment against the unions. This resulted in the strikes failure and ensured an absence of union organization in the steel industry for the next 15 years. -
Wagner Act
this bill was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. It established the National Labor Relations Board and addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector. -
Taft-Hartley Act
The Taft-Hartley Act made major changes to the Wagner Act. Although Section 7 was retained intact in the revised law, new language was added to provide that employees had the right to refrain from participating in union or mutual aid activities except that they could be required to become members in a union as a condition of employment.
