"Stowell, author of the definitive Streets, Railroads and the Great Strike of 1877, brings together social historians who examine how the strikes created a shift in the pictorial stereotyping of workers in the pages of illustrated newspapers; the railroad strikes in Hornellsville, New York; how the 'Battle of Halsted Street' revitalized the labor movement in Chicago politics; strike fears and agitation in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville; details of the strike in San Francisco, where Chinese immigrants were the target; and the effect of the strikes on Hispanic and Mexican-American labor and racial issues in southern California."
C&RL News "These insightful essays let us glimpse the nation's first responses, its initial stumbling steps in a painful, sometimes bloody process of adjustment that, in many ways, occupies the nation to this day."
Business History Review “As many historians consider the strikes of 1877 to be the beginning of the organized labor movement in the United States, the lessons learned from this epic can serve to educate activists of today, and Stowell’s work provides a concise guide.”
Labor Studies Journal "Few events in American labor history are more fraught with significance than the Great Strikes. Bringing our understanding of the events up to date with the latest historiography, The Great Strikes of 1877 is the first volume to assess the strikes' larger implications while also looking closely at their dynamics in particular local settings."
Joseph A. McCartin, author of Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921