Birth of a Nation and the Great Railroad Strike of 1877

The Birth of a Nation was a film directed by H.W. Griffith in 1915. It was originally titled, The Clansman, but was renamed to Birth of a Nation after some critics did not like the name of the film. Some film scholars agree that it is the single most important and key film of all time in American movie history. It contains many new cinematic innovations and refinement, and has a color sequence at the …

…the Illinois Central. Other railroads followed suit and the strike was well on its way across the nation. Military force by the National Guard and federal troops finally ended the strike, but many lives were lost in the process. Questions or issues that this topic would illuminate would be those pertaining to the use of unions, the labor issue in general for this time period, and how depression set the tone for this great strike.