After the Strike

After The Strike explores the effect of race, gender, and nationality in the long struggle for economic justice by men and women of the Pullman Company.

Explores the effect of race, gender, and nationality in the long struggle for economic justice by men and women of the Pullman Company.

The 1894 Pullman strike and the rise of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters played major roles in the century-long development of union organizing and labor-management relations in the Pullman Company. Susan Eleanor Hirsch connects the stories of Pullman car builders and porters to answer critical questions like: what created job segregation by race and gender? What role did such segregation play in shaping the labor movement? 

Hirsch illuminates the relationship between labor organizing and the racial and sexual discrimination practiced by both employers and unions. Because the Pullman Company ran the sleeping-car service for American railroads and was a major manufacturer of railcars, its workers were involved in virtually every wave of union organizing from the 1890s to the 1940s. 

In exploring the years of struggle by the men and women of the Pullman Company, After the Strike reveals the factors that determined the limited success and narrow vision of most American unions.