Streetcar Politics and Reform Government in Cleveland, 1880–1909

On the sweltering afternoon of June 5, 1899, three-year-old Roy Paley played in front of his home in the crowded Orange Avenue neighborhood just south of Cleveland’s city center. About 5 p.m., as the little boy attempted to cross the street, he was struck by one of the streetcars of the Cleveland Electric Railway. He died shortly after the accident. When the grief-stricken father carried his son’s body home, “the scene touched the people in the neighborhood . . . and caused a general uprising.” Although a “furious mob,” estimated at between five and six thousand, threw “missiles” at passing streetcars and attacked at least one streetcar crew, the police arrested only five persons during the riot.¹

The response of the Orange Avenue residents to the Paley tragedy demonstrates the antipathy of many working-class Clevelanders toward the city’s street railroads, a dislike that had been a significant component of the city’s working-class politics since the early 1880s. In a 1997 article, the historian Shelton Stromquist pointed out that studies of urban progressivism have been “hindered” by “an inability by historians to look beyond the agency of a ‘middle class,’ however defined,” and by “the failure of historians to provide a credible account of the contentious politics of reform.” In Cleveland, while middle-class “experts” and intellectuals did play a pivotal role in legitimizing and implementing Progressive era programs, working-class politics framed many of the issues reformers addressed.² Between 1880 and 1901, the efforts of Cleveland’s working-class citizens created a political environment built on anti–street railroad politics that the city’s celebrated reform mayor Tom Johnson later exploited, first to win election, then to draw on overwhelming working-class support to wage his eight-year battle with the city’s streetcar companies. Johnson’s fight against the street railroads, the most well-known result of the city’s class-based politics, grew out of a contentious issue that workers constantly pushed to the forefront, first as a local concern then as a citywide problem.

Street railroads played multiple roles as many American cities grew at a phenomenal rate in the late nineteenth century. Expanding streetcar lines enabled upper- and middle-class urban residents to live farther from their places of work, increased the city’s geographical area, contributed to the development of suburban communities, and destroyed the heterogeneous “walking city” of pre-industrial towns. Neighborhoods surrounding downtown areas became poorer and more densely populated as an increasing number of immigrants shared space with businesses and industries. Street railroads occupied center stage in many poor urban residents’ critiques of the burgeoning industrial system: they corrupted and controlled municipal politics, exploited their workers, abused their passengers, and made working-class neighborhoods dangerous places for children to play. Urban population growth exacerbated these problems, as increasing numbers of manufacturing jobs attracted millions of people to already overcrowded cities. Between 1880 and 1900, the country’s most populous cities experienced dramatic growth, with industrializing cities showing the largest increases. For example, Cleveland, New York, Buffalo, Detroit, and Pittsburgh more than doubled their populations, and Chicago and Toledo tripled theirs.³

Population and industrial growth gave Cleveland a strong working-class character. In 1880, more than three-quarters of people employed reported working-class occupations, and these numbers changed little during the decade. By 1890, the workforce consisted of 22 percent professional or white-collar workers and 78 percent artisan or unskilled. Of the city’s residents, 37 percent had immigrated, and another 43 percent had at least one parent of foreign birth, leaving the population born of native parents at slightly below 20 percent. The largest working-class neighborhoods existed near the industrial plants on the shores of Lake Erie and on both sides of the Cuyahoga River. Most of Cleveland’s middle- and upper-class residents lived away from the industrial areas, either in interior portions on the city’s east side or in outlying neighborhoods on both sides of the river.⁴ Between 1889 and 1900, the city became increasingly diverse demographically...