Heading: (California - San Francisco)
Author: Kean, John, Chief of Pickets
Title: "Street Car Situation" - broadside relating to the strike by streetcar carmen in San Francisco in 1907
Place Published: San Francisco
Publisher:
Date Published: 1907
Description:

Printed broadside. 28x18.8 cm (11x7¼").

Rare broadside addressing labor strife in post-earthquake San Francisco. The San Francisco streetcar strike of 1907 was among the most violent of the streetcar strikes in the United States between 1895 and 1929. Before the end of the strike, thirty-one people had been killed and about 1100 injured. The broadside, printed at a union shop, of course, asks "questions" and urges "everybody to keep off the cars with the firm determination that they will not ride until Mr. P. Calhoun accepts the arbitration which was offered..." Railroad official Patrick Calhoun had contracted with the nationally known "King of the Strikebreakers" James A. Farley, for four hundred replacement workers waiting on board ship. The streetcar Carmen's Union struck on May 5, 1907, for an 8-hour day and $3 per day. Farley's armed workers took control of the entire system. The violence started two days later, Bloody Tuesday, when a shootout on Turk Street left 2 dead and about 20 injured. Both the pro-labor Mayor Schmitz and Calhoun were indicted on corruption charges. Mayor Schmitz was replaced. The strike was officially called off in March 1908. No copies are listed in OCLC.

Browning to the paper, fragile, a few marginal tape repairs; very good.