Great Steel Strike of 1919 - A Cleveland Perspective

Description

Over 350,000 steel workers went on strike in 1919 across the United States.  On the heels of World War I, in the middle of a frustrating economic recession, and at the outset of the Red Scare striking workers demanded union recognition and wage increases.  Although the strike ended unsuccessfully at the beginning of 1920, it planted the seeds for later union organizing during the 1930s.

Cleveland, an industrial center in the Midwest fueled in part by steel by 1919, saw over 18,000 steel workers join the strike.  Sixteen of the city's eighteen steel mills became inoperable at the outset of the work refusal.  Two of those, American Steel and Wire and Otis Steel, were the location of much conflict between management and labor.  Two picketers were even shot outside of American Steel and Wire less than a month into the workers' campaign.

By January of 1920, however, Cleveland steel workers joined hundreds of thousands in going back to work without winning a single concession.  Using tough tactics that included violence and replacement workers, the behemoth steel industry had won both nationally and in the city of Cleveland.

It would be a mistake to view the defeat of the steel strike in 1919 as a total loss from the perspective of rank and file workers though.  One is hard pressed to imagine what life would have been like were steel workers not to mount some sort of organized push in a post-World War I economy wrought with hysteria about foreigners and communists.  Viewed through the lens of these workers and citizens one can see the ability for everyday people to shape history in a city built, literally, with steel.

Credits

Justin Hons