Understanding the 1894 Pullman Strike: Impacts and Insights

The Pullman strike began on May 11, 1894. It was a peacefully ran labor protest that was against a Chicago employer. During the beginning of the summer, combustible conditions ignited the strike, “causing this local strike to explode first into a national labor boycott of more than twenty railroads and then into a violent confrontation between the federal government, the railroads companies, and American workers” (54). Within the strike, violent protests stared to take place, railway property attacks, rail yard fires,, and harmful confrontations between prolabor participants and authorities. Strikes were so major that it was written about in newspapers, “excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Times. Since newspapers were a historical source of the Pullman strike, there were many benefits and drawbacks of the reports.
Newspapers are great for people who are interested in what is happening in a community. They provide, “information about the who, what, when, where, and how events in the past” (59). In addition to the providing of information, newspapers also can be the cause of mood changes in a community. Even though they can not imform the public on a readers thoughts, “ they can tell us what information and opinion readers were being exposed to, and circulation figures can indicate the populatity of

Both of them described the strike from different viewpoints, which allowed bias to become detectable in the articles. The Trubune’s stories were opposing the ARU boycott, however, the Chicago Times supported the movement of the boycott. An opportunity was given to the Times because they were able to, “capture a new, working-class audience”. (61). To verify the claimes in theses articles (then and now), one must do research about the topics of the articles. It must be research from reliable sources to reduce the amount of bias that will be received from the reader or