The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 erupted on July 14 when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year, triggering America's first multi-state labor uprising. Against the backdrop of the Long Depression—which had driven unemployment to 14 percent and slashed wages by half—railroad workers from West Virginia to California halted freight traffic across the nation. What began in Martinsburg spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis, drawing supp