Pullman Workers Strike: Rail Network Paralyzed Nationwide
Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company walked off the job on May 11, 1894, after George Pullman cut wages by 25% while maintaining rents in his company town at pre-cut levels. When the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, launched a sympathy boycott of all trains carrying Pullman cars, rail traffic across 27 states ground to a halt. President Grover Cleveland deployed 12,000 federal troops on the grounds that the strike obstructed mail delivery. The intervention resulted in 30 deaths and the arrest of Debs, who served six months in prison, where he read Karl Marx and became a socialist. The episode led directly to the establishment of Labor Day as a federal holiday in 1894, as a concession to organized labor.
May 11, 1894
132 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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