The Year of Hope and Fear

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The Great Steel Strike The horrors of the Great War, as World War I was then known, ended in Europe on November 11, 1918. Over the course of the next year, 1919, the hope of utopia, and the fear of a new tyranny, followed as the continent was engulfed in insurrection and reaction. In America, 1919 also brought hope and fear, the hope of a new era of working class empowerment, and the fear that such working class empowerment threatened the basic fabric of American society. Central to those American hopes, as well as fears, was the great steel strike of 1919. It was the largest single strike in American history up to that time. At its height over a third of a million steelworkers, mostly of immigrant background, were on strike. For them, it promised to bring about the long-sought unionization of the core industry of America's industrial economy. For those who opposed them, the strike threatened both the very nature of the American economic model, as well as America itself. Understanding the hopes of the workers, and the fears of those who fought them, also helps us understand why the strike was such a titanic confrontation. For both sides it was a battle for the soul of America, a battle for what it meant to be an "American."