Which 1894 U.S. labor conflict began at the Pullman Company in Chicago?

The 1894 U.S. labor conflict that began at the Pullman Company in Chicago was the Pullman Strike.

The dispute began on May 11, 1894, when nearly 4,000 workers at the Pullman Company’s Chicago works stopped work. The company had cut wages during the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1893, while rents in the company town of Pullman remained high. Workers appealed for relief, but management rejected their demands.

The American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, soon organized a nationwide boycott of trains hauling Pullman cars. The action disrupted passenger and freight traffic across much of the country and transformed a factory dispute into a national railroad crisis.

Federal troops entered the conflict after an injunction was issued, and violence broke out in several locations. The strike collapsed in July 1894; Debs was arrested, and the American Railway Union was effectively broken. The Pullman Strike is often confused with the earlier Great Railroad Strike of 1877 or the Homestead Strike of 1892, but those were separate labor conflicts.