Ramsey County History – Spring 1992: “A Nationwide Sense of Crisis: The 1922 Shopmen’s Strike in St. Paul and the Northwest”

A Nationwide Sense of Crisis: The 1922 Shopmen’s Strike in St. Paul and the Northwest

Author: W. Thomas White

The 1922 rail strike was the most severe since 1894. Workers endured the loss of a wildcat strike in 1920, then a series of wage reductions. On July 1 some 400,000 shop workers across the country put down their tools. President Harding’s Republican administration brought the force of the state against them, individual railroads made side deals, and the Wobblies got into the act. The St. Paul-based lines used the strike to purge pro-union workers. As usual, the workers lost.

PDF of White article