Soldiers as Strikebreakers: Attitudes of US Servicemen toward Their Role in Industrial Violence, 1877–1900

The usage of federal and state troops in Gilded-Age labor strikes is an established fact of American history. What is understudied, however, is how exactly those troops felt about that role. As many servicemen shared working-class backgrounds with strikers, their experiences are fertile ground for study. Due to the level of archival work required, most existing scholarship uses secondhand sources – either official reports from officers or accounts from newspapers. Officers usually reported that their men followed orders well, suggesting consent among troops, but this fact leaves unanswered questions. Did men have to rationalize their actions? Did they grudgingly view their service as just a dirty job that had to be done? Or were they indeed committed to social order, and therefore satisfied with their roles? These are more difficult questions to answer. This project will fill that gap by uncovering the voices of servicemen themselves and see how they spoke to family, friends, and each other about their actions. It incorporates archival material from National Guard and Army regiments that were deployed during labor strikes between 1877 and 1900. As archival collections are scattered, I will zero in on specific regiments that were deployed during labor strikes. There will specifically be a qualitative investigation of the 7^th, 13^th, and 23^rd New York National Guard Regiments, whose collections are held in various archives in New York. Using personal material from these regiments, I will construct a profile of the various opinions that existed among the troops about their actions. By learning more about the servicemen responsible for suppressing labor unrest, we can better understand the complex nature of industrial and labor relations in American history.