Anniversary of the Shamokin Uprising
July 25th 2007 is the 130th anniversary of the Shamokin Uprising, when railroad workers and miners joined the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, America’s first nationwide strike.
It was working on the railroad that was largely responsible for bringing so many Irish originally to Kansas City in the 19th century.
There had been many strikes thoughout the mid 1800s and working for the railroads and mines got progressively worse if that was possible, for those who didn’t die working.
With decreasing wages and increasing profits, 1877 saw workers from Boston to Kansas City join the Great Strike.
Franklin Gowen a first generation Irish American protestant, president of the Reading Railroad - officially the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road - and of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, cut train workers’ wages by 10% in 1874 at a time when one third of Pennsylvania’s workforce was unemployed.
Hal Smith takes up the story:
When Gowen lowered mining wages to 54% of their 1869 level, miners began the “Long Strike” of 1875, lasting 170 days. But Gowen stored enough coal to outlast the strike and crushed the miner’s union by firing its members.
Gowen further accused leaders of the Irish community of running an alleged secret society called the “Molly Maguires” that killed mine officials. He used private police to investigate and company lawyers to prosecute. Catholics and Irish were excluded from juries. Beginning in June 1877, 20 “Molly Maguires” were executed- often despite strong evidence of innocence.
The Molly Maguires history, in so much as it exists, is caught up with that of the AOH. You can read the story of the Shamokin Uprising and the Great Strike, in The Shamrock Communications as written by Hal Smith whose great-grandfather was a railroad worker in White Haven.
See Also:
• KC Drill Teams Salute Irish Rebels
• Irish Laborers Tunnel through Rockies
• Walt Disney Wore A Claddagh
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Thats awesome that I wrote this story and people all over the internet are passing it around.
Kind of a funny coincidence that Shamrock Communications owns the media that published it- clever of you to mention that. The name of the newspaper though is the NEWS ITEM.
For Irish enthusiasts out there, I advise- the Locust Gap Fire company, and searching for the site of framed Molly Maguire Patrick Hester’s house near Locust Gap. Some of us know where it is, I’ll leave it to the adventurers to find it. RIP