The Last Great Strike

CHAPTER 10

Let’s Bust Them Up: Last Struggles and Defeat 

Part I of The Last Great Strike discusses the Open Shop Era, which preceded and laid the groundwork for, the Little Steel Strike. Part II, which includes Chapters 6 through 10, discusses the Strike itself. In Chapter 10, Professor White discusses the chaotic and violent conclusion to the Little Steel Strike:

By mid-summer 1937, the strike was collapsing. The plants not already reopened were relighting their furnaces and preparing to resume production. Overall, far fewer picketers patrolled the gates.

There were notable exceptions, however. Sheet & Tube’s large mill at Indiana Harbor and smaller mill in South Chicago both remained closed, as did another small mill, the N&G Taylor mill in Cumberland, Marylandand. Strikers were prepared to vigorously resist any effort to reopen these mills and they were ultimately the last mills involved in The Little Steel Strike to reopen.

Moreover, for a time, picketers stood fast even in some places where the mills had reopened. As the Ohio National Guard recognized, "heavy pickets" could still be found in a number of locations in that state, including Cleveland, Massillon, and Niles. These pockets of resistance set the stage for a chaotic and violent conclusion to the walkout.