1906 RPPC photo postcard of vandalized streetcar, Hamilton ON strike

$65.00 CAD

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Nice scarce photo of streetcar that has been vandalized by bottles and stones thrown at it on November 5th 1906, during transit strike in Hamilton Ontario.

Text at bottom of photo (negative) “Street Car en route to Car Sheds after encounter with mob during strike“.

On back, written in pencil “HAM street car strike MOB DAMAGE Nov 23/06

Negative has varying exposure levels.

 

On the evening of Monday November 5, a crowd gathered at the HRER/H&D station at James & Gore (today's James & Wilson). At first the crowd was quiet, but as the sun set and the HRER cars continued to operate the crowd began to get more and more agitated. The crews on the radial cars departing at 8:30 and 9:30 PM were the target of insults, while rocks and bottles were thrown at the radial car departing at 11:15 PM, shattering the windows. A crowd at the Stuart St Car barn also threw stones and broke windows, before the police arrived and drove off the crowd.

http://www.trainweb.org/hamtransithist/1906Strike.html

Widespread violence and vandalism erupted during an HSR transit strike after managers tried to keep the system going. Streetcars and other transit property were severely damaged in stone-hurling incidents, as were other vehicles that were caught in the fray. It all came to a head on Nov. 24, 1906, at 7:15 p.m. when the city's mayor and sheriff stood on the steps of City Hall on James Street North and read the Riot Act before an unruly mob.

The incident stands out as the worst example of the loss of law and order in the city, and one of only two times the Riot Act has been invoked in Hamilton. In 1906, after the declaration was read in the midst of the HSR strike, a force of 15 officers and 162 cavalry members charged into the unruly crowd with swinging clubs and fixed bayonets. Scores of people were injured, and 32 people were arrested. Thankfully, no one was killed.

https://www.thespec.com/news-story


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