July Twenty-Third, Eighteen Seventy-Seven: The Seventh Street Cut

In the summer of eighteen seventy-seven, Reading became one of the most violent sites of a national labor crisis. What happened here on July twenty-third is now called the Reading Railroad Massacre, and the facts are established clearly enough to name what occurred.

The background was the Long Depression, the economic collapse that followed the Panic of eighteen seventy-three. The Philadelphia and Reading Railway, under president Franklin Gowen, had crushed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers earlier that year by issuing an ultimatum: leave the union or lose your job. Many workers were fired and blacklisted. Others were still owed back wages. Then, in mid-July, railroad strikes erupted across the nation, from Martinsburg, West Virginia, through Baltimore and on to Pittsburgh, where rioting left sixty-one dead and hundreds of rail cars burned. Reading's workers went out as well.

The city's railroad infrastructure became a battleground. Workers blocked rail traffic. They burned the Lebanon Valley Branch bridge to prevent National Guard units from being transported to reinforce actions elsewhere. The company mobilized its Coal and Iron Police and Pinkerton detectives, and militia units were ordered in by rail.

Near nightfall on July twenty-third, one unit of the Pennsylvania State Militia marched into the Seventh Street Cut, a man-made ravine three blocks long with walls rising twenty to thirty feet on either side. Rioters on the ridgeline above bombarded the soldiers with bricks, stones, and gunfire. The soldiers fired rifle volleys into a crowd at the far end of the cut. The coroner's inquest later established between ten and sixteen civilian deaths and dozens of injuries.

The inquest did not blame the militia. It blamed the county sheriff for failing to maintain public order. No one was convicted for the civilian deaths. Seven men were convicted of burning the bridge.

The Seventh Street Cut is still there. The walls are still steep.