Burlington Strike

On 27 February 1888 locomotive enginemen of the Burlington Railway, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, struck for higher wages and abandonment of the system of classification. The strike was supported by the Knights of Labor. As it dragged on, violence flared, trains were wrecked, men were shot, and property was burned or otherwise destroyed. The brotherhood finally gave in, but the railway damage was enormous. By 1 February 1889 train operations were normal. The Burlington strike hastened the end of the Knights of Labor's brief reign as an effective organizer of railroad labor in the middle to late 1880s.

Bibliography

McMurry, Donald L. The Great Burlington Strike of 1888: A Case History in Labor Relations. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1956.

—Thomas Robson Hay/A. R.