Dissertation
Striking Switchmen: Railroad Worker Unionism in the United States, 1877-1935
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004627
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125117
Abstract
In 1877, a group of railroad workers known as the switchmen formally unionized in the midst of an economic recession resulting in deteriorating working conditions. From 1877 to 1935, the switchmen periodically organized in the United States against railroad managers through a combination craft-exclusive unionism and federated industrial unionism. Existing scholarship documents shifts between craft and federated unionism among railroaders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with railway engineers and firemen often at the center of the narrative. This study places switchmen at the center of the narrative to reveal the central role they played in unionizing for improved working conditions within a capitalist wage labor system via peaceful arbitration or strikes. Furthermore, switchmen represented a microcosm of the broader American labor movements, which frequently ebbed between conservative trade unionism aimed at negotiating changes to employment terms for their own craftsmen and progressive industrial unionism intended to obtain more substantial changes across craft lines. Histories of the switchmen also reveal their influence on federal legislation related to labor laws and worker benefits. In totality, the switchmen resulted in neither total successes or failures, but uncover the give-and-take nature of labor negotiations and their agency in employment disputes.
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Details
- Title
- Striking Switchmen
- Creators
- Kevin KipersKevin Kipers
- Contributors
- Lawrence Hatter (Advisor)Laurie Mercier (Committee Member)Jennifer Thigpen (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 180
- Identifiers
- OCLC#: 1365399762; 99900898117001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation