Editing Pullman Strike (section)

==Boycott==
[[File:Walker Chicagoblockade Harpersweekly Color (2).jpg|thumb|left|The American Railway Union escalated the Pullman Strike beginning with the blockade of the Grand Crossing in Chicago during the night of June 26, 1894.]]

Many of the Pullman factory workers joined the [[American Railway Union]] (ARU), led by [[Eugene V. Debs]], which supported their strike by launching a [[boycott]] in which ARU members refused to run trains containing Pullman cars. At the time of the strike approximately 35% of Pullman workers were members of the ARU.<ref name=":0" /> The plan was to force the railroads to bring Pullman to compromise. Debs began the boycott on June 26, 1894. Within four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads had "[[Walkout|walked off]]" the job rather than handle Pullman cars.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard Schneirov |author2=Shelton Stromquist |author3=Nick Salvatore |title=The Pullman Strike and Crisis of the 1890s: Essays on Labor and Politics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OA-31eBGzpkC&pg=PA137 |year=1999 |publisher=U. of Illinois Press |page=137 |isbn=9780252067556 }}</ref> The railroads coordinated their response through the General Managers' Association, which had been formed in 1886 and included 24 lines linked to Chicago.<ref name="Wish, The Pullman Strike" /><ref>Donald L. McMurry, "Labor Policies of the General Managers' Association of Chicago, 1886–1894," ''Journal of Economic History'' (1953) 13#2 pp. 160–78 {{JSTOR|2113436 }}</ref> The railroads began hiring replacement workers ([[strikebreaker]]s), which increased hostilities. Many African Americans were recruited as strikebreakers and crossed picket lines, as they feared that the racism expressed by the American Railway Union would lock them out of another labor market. This added racial tension to the union's predicament.<ref>David E. Bernstein, ''Only One Place of Redress'' (2001) p. 54</ref>
In Chicago, where the railroads found it difficult to continue operating without striking employees, the boycott had the greatest effect. The pressure put on by the population at the time on Pullman increased as ARU members used "unity" to shut down rail networks. But, by refusing to engage in negotiations and receiving federal court orders to put an end to the strike, the railroads, who were unified under the General Managers' Association, showed all of its corporate power. Conflict broke out between strikers and replacement workers that often turned violent in Chicago alone, and federal troops were eventually called in to bring the peace back. Strikers had been separated more from public sympathy by the media, which often than not supported industrialists, portraying them as disruptive. The boycott revealed the amount of racial and economic divides while showing the growing influence of industrial labor unions. Debs's arrest afterward stamped the Pullman Strike as a turning point in labor history by showing the federal government's preference for corporate interests over workers' rights.<ref>Lindsey, Almont. The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.</ref>
<ref>Smith, Carl. Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.</ref>
<ref>Green, James. Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006.</ref>

On June 29, 1894, Debs hosted a peaceful meeting to rally support for the strike from railroad workers at [[Blue Island, Illinois]]. Afterward, groups within the crowd became enraged and set fire to nearby buildings and derailed a locomotive.<ref name="Wish, The Pullman Strike">Harvey Wish, "The Pullman Strike: A Study in Industrial Warfare," ''Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society'' (1939) 32#3, pp. 288–312 {{JSTOR|40187904}}</ref> Elsewhere in the western states, sympathy strikers prevented transportation of goods by walking off the job, obstructing railroad tracks, or threatening and attacking strikebreakers. This increased national attention and the demand for federal action.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}