TROLLEY WARS [Hardcover]

MOLLOY SCOTT (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1996

American cities' rapid expansion after the Civil War fueled the growth of organized transportation systems - omnibuses, horsecars, and later electric streetcars. Trolley Wars traces the social dynamics of these first mass-transportation systems as they developed in Rhode Island, the most urbanized state in Gilded Age America. Covering years of careening growth, Scott Molloy focuses on the laborers who operated the transit system, the changing ownership of the streetcar lines, and the strong bond that grew between trolley crews and passengers - a bond that sustained a powerful political alliance during the bitter "car wars" of 1902. Nineteenth-century motormen and conductors often spent their entire career on one route, becoming sentinels of the community with loyal followings among riders. As the changeover from horsepower to electricity revolutionized urban travel, out-of-state syndicates purchased the transit lines and instituted cost-saving measures that irritated employees and patrons alike. Even more unsettling was the links between the corporations and the Republican-dominated state legislature in Rhode Island - an unholy alliance that ignored the organized carmen's demand for better wages, shorter hours, and safety improvements. A showdown, Molloy demonstrates, was inevitable. Labor's response to corporate arrogance and corrupt politics galvanized citizens throughout Providence, Pawtucket, and surrounding industrial areas. The ensuing walkout, transit boycott, strike, and fundraising efforts to aid picketing workers during the car wars were supported across class lines and directed at both the railroad and the politicians. Molloy dissects Rhode Island's 1902 car wars and relatesthem to a larger pattern of labor unrest and urban malaise throughout the country. He argues that the development of urban mass transportation involved a battle for control of city streets and city government. By focusing on transit workers in Rhode Island, Trolley Wars

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Labor and industrial relations professor Molloy examines the conflicts that grew out of America's shift from horse-drawn to electric-powered transport in heavily urbanized Rhode Island during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In only a few years, the fledgling electric trolley car industry exploded, causing a host of benefits and problems. On the labor front, trolley workers split along the lines of age and seniority, fighting each other over pay and benefits. Management and owners battled labor unions. Meanwhile, the trolley's reliability and speed made life more efficient--and hectic. In shaping cities, the trolley prompted the blossoming of suburbs, as the middle and upper classes now had an easy means to enter and leave the congested cities. An extremely readable mix of history, sociology, and labor politics. Brian McCombie

Review

The roots of trolley transit expansion and the rise of the trolley car is charted in a fine title which focuses not just on transit history, but on the underlying local politics which influenced the trolley's rise, and the labor disputes which arose. This will be an important college-level guide both for transportation classes and for students of labor relations: it charts Rhode Island's turn-of-the-century car wars and their relationship to larger patterns of labor unrest and mass transit issues in the country. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian; illustrated edition edition (January 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560986085
• ISBN-13: 978-1560986089
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Busman's Holiday, December 2, 2001

By 

Timothy F. Schick "nickdngr" (Providence, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TROLLEY WARS (Hardcover)

Scott Molloy is Rhode Island's foremost labor historian. Now a history professor and the University of Rhode Island, Molloy worked his way through graduate school working as a bus driver for the state's bus company. It was there that he began researching and studying the history of Rhode Island public transportation and the people who worked there.

In preparing this work, Molloy interviewed retired street car workers, poured through yellowed newspapers and dug through boxes of records sitting in the dusty corners of the bus driver's union.

His efforts have paid off. Trolley Wars tells the story of the rise of public transportation from the experiences of the people who made it work -- the workers.