November 7, 1863 | Illustration
This image from the November 7, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts defensive works built near the Rappahannock Railway Bridge during the American Civil War.
September 17, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
August 10, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
October 13, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
January 27, 1866 | Illustration
This image from the January 27, 1866 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the ceremonial "first spike" of the Atchison and Pike's Peak Railroad.
April 28, 1870 | Legal decision
Catharine Brown's case--Case No. 4582--was scheduled to go to trial in October 1868 in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, but was delayed because of various procedural motions by the railroad's attorneys. When these motions were denied, the case was tried over three days in March 1870. The all white jury rendered a verdict of guilty against the railroad company and awarded Brown $1,500 in damages. Then, the defendant railroad attorney's sought an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is their statement of argument, denying that the railroad used violence or made derogatory remarks. Furthermore, in denying Brown's claims, the railroad argued that there were distinctions between through and local passenger types of service, even on the Baltimore and Ohio, and that separate colored cars on local lines were run at the request of black passengers.
September 21, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
July 18, 1877 | Newspaper
This excerpt from the July 18, 1877 edition of the Baltimore American lists several military dispatches in response to the strike, including correspondence from West Virginia Governor Henry M. Matthews asking Secretary of War George W. McCrary for assistance and tactical messages between the field commanders.
November 18, 1873 | Newspaper
The New York Times reported on its front page the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Catharine Brown's case. The case aroused Republicans to reconsider the intent and purpose of the Congress in the midst of the Civil War because it turned on the railroad's Congressional charter from 1863 which clearly barred any discrimination on the basis of race or color. The railroad's main argument before the Supreme Court rested first on the idea that separate cars were customary, locally sanctioned, and equally accommodated, and second on the specious reasoning that because they carried colored passengers they had not violated the Congressional charter--colored persons were carried, just in a different car. The spirit of the Congress in 1863, the Court decided, suggested otherwise. The decision, however significant and newsworthy, was sorely limited in its application. Only a handful of railroads in the District of Columbia possessed such language in their originating charters.
July 25, 1877 | Illustration
This image from the front page of the July 25, 1877 issue of PUCK Magazine mockingly depicts two strikers "digging their own graves."
October 18, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
October 17, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
July 20, 1877 | Newspaper
This article from the July 20, 1877 edition of the Baltimore American notes the attitude of the railroad workers toward any attempted to break up the strike.
July 6, 1861 | Illustration
This image from the July 6, 1861 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the destruction of the Potomac railroad bridge near Harper's Ferry by Confederate troops.
May 21, 1864 | Illustration
This image from the May 21, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Union soldiers from the First Brigade, Third Division of the Twenty-third Army Corps destroying the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad during the American Civil War.
October 1, 1864 | Illustration
This image from the October 1, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the destruction of railway cars by Confederate General John Bell Hood before the evacuation of Atlanta during the American Civil War.
August 7, 1896 | Speech
Speech by William Jennings Bryan.
1863 | Photograph
Northern railroad stations became places to gather for news and information. President Abraham Lincoln passed through Hanover Junction in November 1863 on his way to Gettysburg for the opening of the national cemetery. Crowds gathered to meet the president.
1880 | Book
An excerpt from Henry Adams' Democracy, An American Novel.
August 28, 1894 | Newspaper
Republican editor Edward Rosewater went on a campaign to discredit Thomas Majors, the Republican nominee for governor in 1894, and to expose railroad influence in the campaign. Rosewater's disgruntled disgust with party fealty to the railroads did not prevent him from attacking the Democratic Party as beholden to trusts and against the interests of workingmen.