ABSTRACT
On 27 March 1874, the New York Times, covering a strike of the Erie Railroad workers, reported that the company was hiring Italian immigrants directly from the steamships at Castle Garden. 1 On the same day the newspaper reported that “between 100 and 200 Italians” had been hired to replace striking tunnel builders on a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad project near Hoboken, New Jersey.
The men had scarcely begun their labors before they were attacked by a band of the strikers. A riot, during which stones and clubs were freely used, ensued. The Italians, finding themselves worsted, retreated, not, however, until several of them had been severely hurt and fled, many of them into neighboring houses. One of them, however, had been rendered unconscious by a blow upon the head with a stone, and the infuriated strikers beat him almost to death. 2
Indeed, gangs of Italian newcomers (as well as Hungarians, Japanese, and blacks) were used extensively, often under false contracts and without their knowing, to break strikes during the 1870s and 1880s. 3