Historedia
Episode 1 of 1

Wildcat Strike Begins

When
May 11, 1894
Where
Company town of Pullman, just outside Chicago
Part of
Pullman Palace Car Company wildcat strike, May 1894

Nearly 4,000 Pullman factory employees walked off the job in Chicago on May 11, 1894, beginning a wildcat strike against recent wage reductions.

The employees of the Pullman Company walked off the job on May 11, 1894, initiating the Pullman Strike. The conflict began in Chicago when nearly 4,000 factory employees began a wildcat strike, undertaken without union approval, in response to recent reductions in wages. The walkout occurred amid grievances that included the absence of democracy within the town of Pullman, rigid paternalistic control of workers by the company, excessive water and gas rates, and a refusal to allow workers to buy and own houses.

Sources

  1. Pullman Strike Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-03
  2. Pullman Company Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-16

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.