The Quest for Streetcar Unionism in the Carolina Piedmont, 1919-1922

Book excerpt: Ever since the courtroom doors closed in 1919, the tragic Charlotte Streetcar Strike has haunted the collective memory of the Carolina Piedmont region. During a season of labor unrest, it briefly made national headlines. Five men were killed and at least twelve others were wounded by gunfire during a demonstration against Southern Public Utilities, a subsidiary of James B. Duke’s Southern Power. For many who lived afterward in North Carolina’s “Queen City,” the strike and riot were events better left forgotten, while, for later generations, the “Battle of the Barn” has become an item of curiosity. As the centennial approaches, this book represents the result of over ten years’ worth of primary research about the Charlotte Streetcar Strike, a story that rightfully belongs to a larger narrative about the AFL’s campaign to organize transportation workers among the textile mill towns of North and South Carolina. Prior to the 1919 Charlotte Strike, the national streetcar union had overcome fierce anti-labor sentiment, from South Carolina’s state capital of Columbia to the Upcountry citadel of Spartanburg. To AFL organizers, Charlotte represented the last link in the Piedmont chain.