Pacific Railway Act, Date:1862

Annotation: The Pacific Railway Act authorized construction of the first transcontinental
railroad, extending from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. The act was approved and
signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862. The Civil War and lack of
investors slowed the progress of constructing the railroad, but the project was completed on May
10, 1869.
The railroads acquired more than 175 million acres of public land (an area one-tenth the size of
the United States and larger than Texas) from 1850-1871.
Migration into the American interior expanded with the development of the railroad. Arriving
settlers purchased tracts of land that belonged to the railroad; and farmers and ranchers were
willing to pay high prices for the convenience of having land near railway stations.
Document: The Pacific Railway Act July 1, 1862
An Act to aid in the Construction of a Railroad and Telegraph Line from the Missouri River to
the Pacific Ocean.
Be it enacted, That [names of corporators]; together with five commissioners to be appointed by
the Secretary of the Interior... are hereby created and erected into a body corporate... by the
name... of "The Union Pacific Railroad Company"... ; and the said corporation is hereby
authorized and empowered to lay out, locate, construct, furnish, maintain and enjoy a continuous
railroad and telegraph... from a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from
Greenwich, between the south margin of the valley of the Republican River and the north margin
of the valley of the Platte River, to the western boundary of Nevada Territory, upon the route and
terms hereinafter provided...
Sec. 2. That the right of way through the public lands be... granted to said company for the
construction of said railroad and telegraph line; and the right... is hereby given to said company
to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, earth, stone, timber, and other
materials for the construction thereof; said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of
two hundred feet in width on each side of said railroad when it may pass over the public lands,
including all necessary grounds, for stations, buildings, workshops, and depots, machine shops,
switches, side tracks, turn tables, and water stations. The United States shall extinguish as rapidly
as may be the Indian titles to all lands falling under the operation of this act...
Sec. 3. That there be... granted to the said company, for the purpose of aiding in the construction
of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of mails,
troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of public land,
designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said
railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side of said road...
Provided That all mineral lands shall be excepted from the operation of this act; but where the
same shall contain timber, the timber thereon is hereby granted to said company...

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Date:1877
Annotation: The total miles of railroad track in the United States increased from just 23 in 1830
to 35,000 by the end of the Civil War to a peak of 254,000 in 1916. By the eve of World War I,
railroads employed one out of every 25 American workers. The industry's growth was
accompanied by bitter labor disputes. Many of the nation's most famous strikes involved the
railroads. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the country's first major rail strike and
witnessed the first general strikes in the nation's history. The strikes and the violence it spawned
briefly paralyzed the country's commerce and led governors in ten states to mobilize 60,000
militia members to reopen rail traffic. The strike would be broken within a few weeks, but it also
helped set the stage for later violence in the 1880s and 1890s, including the Haymarket Square
bombing in Chicago in 1886, the Homestead Steel Strike near Pittsburgh in 1892, and the
Pullman Strike in 1894 usher in the world's first Labor Day parade in 1882. In 1877, northern
railroads, still suffering from the financial Panic of 1873, began cutting salaries and wages,
prompting strikes and labor violence with lasting consequences. The Pennsylvania Railroad, the
nation's largest, cut wages by 10 percent and then, in June, by another 10 percent. Other railroads
followed suit. On July 13, the Baltimore & Ohio line cut the wages of all employees making
more than a dollar a day by 10 percent. It also slashed the work week to just to or two or three
days. Forty disgruntled locomotive firemen walked off the job. By the end of the day, workers
blockaded freight trains near Baltimore and in West Virginia, allowing only passenter traffic to
get through. Also in July, the Pennsylvania Railroad announced that it would double the length of
all eastbound trains from Pittsburgh with no increase in the size of their crews. Railroad
employeees responded by seizing control of the railyard switches, blocking the movement of
trains. Soon, violent strikes broke out in Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis,
and San Francisco. Governors in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia called out their
state militias. In Baltimore, a 20-year-old volunteer described the scene: "We met a mob, which
blocked the streets, wrote Charles A. Malloy. "They came armed with stones and as soon as we
came within reach they began to throw at us." Fully armed and with bayonets fixed, the militia
fired, killing 10, including a newsboy and a 16-year-old student. The shootings sparked a
rampage. protesters burned a switchtown, a passenger car, and sent a locomotive crashing into a
siding full of freight cars. They also cut fire hoses. At the height of the melee in 14,000 rioters
took to the streets. Maryland's governor telegraphed President Rutherford Hayes and asked for
troops to protect Baltimore. "The strike," an anonymous Baltimore merchant wrote, "is not a
revolution of fanatics willing to fight for an idea. It is a revolt of working men against low prices
of labor, which have not been accomplished with corresponding low prices of food, clothing and
house rent." In Pittsburgh, where the local militia sympathized with the rail workers, the
governor called in National Guard troops from Philadelphia. The troops fired into a crowd,
killing more than 20 civilians, including women and at least three children. A newspaper
headline read:
"Shot in Cold Blood by the Roughs of Philadelphia. The Lexington of the Labor Conflict at
Hand. The Slaughter of Innocents."

Description of the Events at Haymarket Square, Chicago, May 4, 1886

Digital History ID 1089
Author: Art Young
Date:1939
Annotation: The political cartoonist Art Young describes the Haymarket Square Massacre and
riots.

Document: I need not dwell at length about what happened at Haymarket Square on the night of
May 4, 1886; three days after the nationwide strikes for the eight-hour day. The story has been
told many times--the mass meeting of some fifteen hundred persons in protest of the wanton
killing of workers by police; Mayor Carter Harrison in attendance; Albert Parsons speaking, then
leaving with his wife for a beer garden a couple of blocks away; Samuel Fielden mounting the
wagon used as a rostrum; rain beginning to fall, and the crowd dwindling; the the mayor
departing, and visiting the nearby Desplaines Street police station to report to Capt. John
Bonfield disregarding the mayor's words, and in a few minutes leading 125 reserve policemen to
the scene and ordering the remaining audience of some two hundred persons to disperse; then
from above or behind the wagon a whizzing spark; a tremendous explosion; many policemen
falling; their comrades firing into the panic-stricken crowd, killing and wounding. Seven of the
police died; how many civilians were killed by police bullets that night was never definitely
known and nothing was ever done about it.
HYSTERIA
Then a hue and cry--widespread police raids; arrests of hundred of men and women known as or
suspected to be Anarchists, Socialists, or Communists; announcements of the discovery of
various dynamite "plots"; announcements of the finding of bombs and infernal machines;
indictment of Albert Parsons and nine others as conspirators responsible for the Haymarket
explosion and the deaths.
Newspaper editors and public men generally cried for a quick trial of the defendants and prompt
execution of the guilty, and here was every reason to believe from the published reports that the
accused deserved to be hanged. Public opinion was formed almost solely by the daily press, and
in its columns evidence was steadily piled up against these labor agitators. Parsons had
disappeared on the night of the bombing--police all over the country were watching for him; was
not his flight confession of guilt? Rudolph Schnaubelt also was gone; he had been arrested twice
and questioned briefly, but had been released--and Captain Schaak was incensed at the
"stupidity" of the detectives who had let him go.

Like the great mass of the Chicagoans; I was swayed by these detailed reports of
the black-heartedness of the defendants. Outstanding business and professional
men and prominent members of the clergy denounced the accused, who were now
all lumped-together as "Anarchists," and condemned the seven Haymarket killings
as the "the most wanton outrage in American history."