July 21, 1877 | Newspaper
On July 21, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes issued a proclamation ordering all strikers to disperse and return home. He noted that a state of "domestic violence" existed in Cumberland, Maryland, and "along the line" of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
July 21, 1877 | Letter
On July 21, 1877, Secretary of War George W. McCrary sends a message to Maryland Governor John L. Carroll telling him that federal troops are coming to his aid.
July 24, 1877 | Newspaper
This July 24, 1877 article from the Pittsburgh Daily Post notes the strike's spread throughout the country.
August 11, 1877 | Illustration
Although there was no large-scale unrest in New York, crowds did gather in Tompkins Square during the Railroad Strike. Tompkins Square had been the site of civil unrest and rioting at several points in New York history, including during the 1863 Draft Riots, and police feared speakers would rile up strike supporters.
August 13, 1877 | Newspaper
This August 13, 1877 article reports on the violence and destruction of the Great Railroad strike in cities across the eastern United States.
1878 | Book
In this excerpt from Allan Pinkerton's Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives, Pinkerton gives his opinion regarding the origin of America's Great Railway Strike of 1877.
1878 | Government report
Norman M. Smith describes the moment of firing into the crowd in Pittsburgh and his impressions of the military and the "mob."
1878 | Government report
Robert Pitcairn served as the Pittsburg division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad and had ordered the double-heading of trains on July 19th for all eastbound traffic. Because trains would be twice as long but run with fewer trainmen, workers on the Pennsylvania refused to run the trains and the strike spread from the Baltimore and Ohio onto the Pennsylvania lines. Pitcairn describes his view of the violence in Pittsburg, emphasizing the restraint of the military and the riotousness of the "crowd." Pitcairn places special emphasis on the role of the women in the crowd.
1878 | Government report
Roger O'Mara, Pittsburgh Chief of Detectives testified on February 11, 1878 to the committee appointed to investigate the railroad strikes. He emphasizes the inability of the local police force to serve warrants and restrain the crowd.
1878 | Government report
Testimony given on February 12, 1878 by Soloman Coulson, a Pittsburgh police officer, described the violence at the railroad roundhouse and the makeup of the crowd gathered outside the roundhouse.
1880 | Book
An excerpt from Henry Adams' Democracy, An American Novel.
1880 | Time Table
The Baltimore and Ohio was one of the oldest railroads in the nation and the first to break through the Allegheny Mountains to reach the Ohio River in 1857. In its 1880 time table the railroad stressed the natural features and wonders along its route and its picturesque sites. The road also used a massive map of the nation to expose its western connections.
1881 | Book
An excerpt from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Whitman salutes the locomotive as a symbol of progress and writes of the hallmarks of a Western journey.
September 1, 1881 | Time Table
The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway's 1881 time table featured linkages to "leading business centers" and "summer resorts of the Great North-West."
1882 | Book
In this excerpt, Douglass relates the details of his dangerous escape from slavery. Traveling the railroad with borrowed papers, he flees to New York.
September 29, 1883 | Newspaper
A brief editorial statement about the conditions on Texas railroads and the lack of equal accomodations for African Americans and the need for a continued struggle against "American intolerance."
January 25, 1884 | Newspaper
This description of the masculine, almost class-free atmosphere in the smoking car is in sharp contrast to the requirements of the "ladies' cars" expected for middle-class female travelers. Note the sense of freedom men seem to experience in the cars.
August 1, 1884 | Time Table
The Chicago and Northwestern Railway's 1884 time table listed detailed times and maps for its extensive regional system.
1885 | Time Table
The Chesapeake and Ohio's 1885 time table featured excursion rates to "Old Point Comfort" on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Pitched to male travelers, the brochure described "nymph-like bathers" at the resort hotel and "the merry laugh of some bewitching beauty." Travelers could also take steamship to Barbados, Rio de Janiero, or Para, Brazil, at "the mouth of the Amazon." The brochure also emphasized the picturesque scences of the Alleghenies and Virginia, where Civil War battlefields could be toured. "The battle of the Seven Pines was fought near where the railway runs," the brochure explained, "and McClellan's peninsular campaign has made this entire section of Virginia interesting."
March 1, 1885 | Time Table
The Boston & Albany's 1885 time table emphasized its connection with the New York Central and its modern safety, as the "only double track route from New England to the West."