From 1895 to 1929, streetcarstrikes affected almost every major city in the United States. Sometimes lasting only a few days, these strikes were often "marked by almost continuous and often spectacular violent conflict,"[2] at times amounting to prolonged riots and weeks of civil insurrection.
Electrified streetcars posed an attractive target for striking unions like the Amalgamated Street Railway Employees of America. Unlike factory buildings, streetcar routes and cars were spread out and difficult to protect. The routes went through the working class neighborhoods of cities; riders tended to be sympathetic to union causes. Their overhead lines and physical tracks were vulnerable to sabotage. And their function as transportation for workers in other industries opened the possibility of leveraging a transit strike into a general strike, as in the Philadelphia trolley strike and riots of 1910.
Despite the transit disruption, which sometimes lasted for months, and despite the fact that many of the casualties were passengers and innocent bystanders, "the strikers invariably enjoyed wide public support, which extended beyond the working class."[2]
The owners' tactic was simply to keep the routes running. To counter hostile crowds, the line owners turned to strikebreakers. Foremost among them was James A. Farley (1874-1913), who specialized in streetcar strikes—he claimed to have broken 50—and was said to command an army of forty thousand scabs [5] to be deployed anywhere in the country. Much of the violence of the 1907 San Francisco strike was attributable to Farley, who reportedly cleared $1 million there. He was doing more than $10 million in business by 1914.[6]
1891, Detroit, Michigan, where strikers had the vocal support of Mayor Hazen S. Pingree, part of his administration's long successful struggle against local traction companies[7]
1913, Buffalo, where two regiments of the National Guard were called out to quell a full day of rioting and mob violence, with several wounded by gunfire, and widespread property damage [10][11]