On this day, 19 July 1883, thousands of telegraphers working for Western Union across the United States walked out on strike demanding equal pay for equal work for men and women, along with other demands, like a pay increase and an eight-hour day.
The bosses had threatened the previous day that if equal pay were implemented, it would mean that they would prefer to just use men, who they alleged “can be availed of for a greater variety of service than women”. The workers, organised in the Brotherhood of Telegraphers, ignored the threats and after management failed to respond to them, walked out.
The strike began when Frank R. Phillips stood on a table in the New York office and blew a whistle. Beginning in major cities, the strike spread to rural areas. In Concord, North Carolina, the lone operator Mary Ormand walked out, and the Home and Democrat newspaper reported her office was shut and wires cut by Western Union as they “could not persuade the brave Miss Ormand to be false to her womanhood.” In total around 8,000 workers across the country participated in the strike, including between 300 and 1,000 women. Unfortunately Western Union was determined to break the workers, and decided to try to starve them back to work.
The strikers had hoped to received support from the Knights of Labor union, but when this did not occur, the strikers were eventually forced to return to work defeated after their funds ran out. Some managers decided not to rehire strike activists, although some strikers refused to return on principle. One woman told a reporter “I will never touch a key again in my life… I would rather cut off my right hand than humiliate myself by asking for my old place.”
Pictured: an illustration of Western Union workers around this time
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