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The Press and the Pullman Strike: Framing Class Conflict

Newspaper coverage of the 1894 Pullman strike and the subsequent American Railway Union boycott provides a window into the way the press framed class conflict in the United States in the 1890s. The Chicago Times, for example, clearly supported the workers and the union. By contrast, the Chicago Tribune and most other Chicago newspapers sided with George M. Pullman and the General Managers Association. Nellie Bly, the era’s most colorful investigative reporter, wrote a personal account of her experience with the striking workers for the New York World.

DOCUMENT 1

Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1894

PULLMAN MEN OUT

Discharges the Cause

Two thousand employees in the Pullman car works struck yesterday, leaving 800 others at their posts. This was not enough to keep the works going, so a notice was posted on the big gates at 6 o’clock . . . saying: “These shops closed until further notice.”

Mr. Pullman said last night he could not tell when work would be resumed. The American Railway Union, which has been proselytizing for a week among the workmen, announces that it will support the strikers . . . [intimating] that the trainmen on the railways on which are organized branches of the union might refuse to handle any of the Pullman rolling stock.

DOCUMENT 2

Chicago Times, May 12, 1894

PULLMAN MEN OUT

Firing Three Men Starts It

Almost the entire force of men employed in the Pullman shops went on strike yesterday. Out of the 4,800 men and women employed in the various departments there were probably not over 800 at work at 6 o’clock last evening. The immediate cause of the strike was the discharge or laying off of three men in the iron machine shop. The real but remote cause is the question of wages over which the men have long been dissatisfied and on account of which they had practically resolved to strike a month ago. . . .

The position of the company is that no increase in wages is possible. . . . President George M. Pullman told the committee that the company was doing business at a loss even at the reduced wages paid the men and offered to show his books in support of his assertion.

DOCUMENT 3

Chicago Times, May 15, 1894

SKIMS OFF THE FAT

Pullman Company Declares a Dividend Today

Full Pockets Swallow $600,000 While Honest Labor Is Starving

Today the Pullman Company will declare a quarterly dividend of 2 per cent on its capital stock of $30,000,000 and President George M. Pullman is authority for the statement that his company owes no man a cent. This despite the assertion of Mr. Pullman that the works have been run at a loss for eight months. Six hundred thousand dollars to shareholders, while starvation threatens the workmen.

DOCUMENT 4

Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1894

MOBS BENT ON RUIN

Men Who Attempt to Work Are Terrorized and Beaten

Continued and menacing lawlessness marked the progress yesterday of Dictator Debs and those who obey his orders in their efforts at coercing the railroads of the country into obeying the mandates of the American Railway Union. . . . At Blue Island, anarchy reigned. The Mayor and police force of that town could do nothing to repress the riotous strikers and they did their own sweet will. . . .

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DOCUMENT 5

Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1894

YARDS FIRE SWEPT

Rioters Prevent Firemen from Saving the Property

From Brighton Park to Sixty-First Street the yards of the Pan-Handle road were last night put to the torch by the rioters. Between 600 and 700 freight cars have been destroyed, many of them loaded. Miles and miles of costly track are in a snarled tangle of heat-twisted rails. Not less than $750,000—possibly a whole $1,000,000 of property—has been sacrificed to the caprice of a mob of drunken Anarchists and rebels.

DOCUMENT 6

Chicago Times, July 7, 1894

MEN NOT AWED BY SOLDIERS

Railway Union Is Confident of Winning against Armed Capital

Despite the presence of United States troops and the mobilization of five regiments of state militia, despite threats of martial law and total extermination of the strikers by bullet and bayonet, the great strike inaugurated by the American Railway Union holds three-fourths of the roads running out of Chicago in its strong fetters, and last night traffic was more fully paralyzed than at any time since the inception of the tie-up. . . .

If the soldiers are sent to this district, bloodshed and perhaps death will follow today, for this is the most lawless element in the city, as is shown by their riotous work yesterday. . . . But the perpetrators are not American Railway Union men. The people engaged in this outrageous work of destruction are not strikers, most of them are not even grown men. The persons who set the fires yesterday on the authority of the firemen and police are young hoodlums . . . and the police on the scene apparently didn’t care to or would not make arrests.

DOCUMENT 7

New York World, July 14, 1894

CHEERS FOR NELLIE BLY

Nellie Bly Covers the Strike

I found in my mail this morning an earnest request from the Pullman A. R. U. for me to be present at a meeting which was to be held in the Turner Hall, Kensington. . . .

So I took my nerves in hand and my place before the table near where the speakers sat. I don’t intend to repeat what I said, but I told them several truths. They were especially amused when I told them that I had come to Chicago very bitterly set against the strikers; that so far as I understood the question, I thought the inhabitants of the model town of Pullman hadn’t a reason on earth to complain. With this belief I visited the town, intending in my articles to denounce the riotous and bloodthirsty strikers. Before I had been half a day in Pullman I was the most bitter striker in the town.

That is true. I’ve [flip]flopped, as they call it, and I am brave enough to confess it. If ever men and women had cause to strike, those men and women are in Pullman. I also said to these men, sitting so quietly and peaceably before me, hungry for a word of sympathy or a word of hope, that if any of them wished to make any statements to me I would be glad to have them do so. After the meeting I was besieged. If I attempted to tell half the tales of wrong I’ve listened to I could fill an entire copy of The World.

Questions for Analysis

Recognize Viewpoints: How do the Tribune and the Times articles differ in their portrayal of events and actors in the strike? Which version of the strike do you think most middle-class readers, who tended to be sympathetic to the strikers but fearful of violence, would have found more compelling?

Consider the Context: What economic and social conditions led workers to strike in the 1890s?

Ask Historical Questions: Do you think readers found Nellie Bly’s article persuasive? Why or why not?