 
the great upheaval was an expression of the new economic and social system 
in america, just as surely as the cities, railroads and factories from which it 
had sprung. 
the enormous expansion of industry after the civil war had transformed 
millions of people who had grown up as farmers and self-employed artisans and 
entrepreneurs into employees, growing thousands of whom were concentrated 
within each of the new corporate empires. 
they were no longer part of village and town communities with their 
extended families and stable, unchallenged values, but concentrated in cities, 
with all their anonymity and freedom; their work was no longer individual and 
competitive, but group and cooperative; they no longer directed their own work, 
but worked under control of a boss; they no longer controlled the property on 
which they worked or its fruits, and therefore could not find fruitful 
employment unless someone with property agreed to hire them. 
the great upheaval grew out of their intuitive sense that they needed each 
other, had the support of each other, and together were powerful. 
this sense of unity was not embodied in any centralized plan or leadership, 
but in the feelings and action of each participant. 
"there was no concert of action at the start," the editor of the "labor 
standard" pointed out. 
"it spread because the workmen of pittsburgh felt the same oppression that 
was felt by the workmen of west virginia and so with the workmen of chicago and 
st.[louis." 
in pittsburgh, concludes historian robert bruce, "men like andrew hice or 
gus harris or david davis assumed the lead briefly at one point or another, but 
only because they happened to be foremost in nerve or vehemence." 
in newark, ohio, "no single individual seemed to command the... strikers. 
