page_title: Springfield race riot of 1908
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Springfield race riot of 1908 / Background / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: The Edwardsville Intelligencer. Mar 1908.
context_page_description: The Springfield race riot of 1908 were events of mass racial violence committed against African Americans by a mob of about 5,000 white Americans and European immigrants in Springfield, Illinois, between August 14 and 16, 1908. Two black men had been arrested as suspects in a rape, and attempted rape and murder. The alleged victims were two young white women and the father of one of them. When a mob seeking to lynch the men discovered the sheriff had transferred them out of the city, the whites furiously spread out to attack black neighborhoods, murdered black citizens on the streets, and destroyed black businesses and homes. The state militia was called out to quell the rioting.
  The riot, trials and aftermath are said to be one of the most well-documented examples of the complex intersection of race, class, and criminal justice in the United States. In 2008 an NPR report on the centenary of the race riot said that the fact of its taking place in a Northern state, specifically in "The Land of Lincoln", demonstrated that blacks were mistreated across the country, not just in the South, and described the event as a proxy for the story of race in America.
context_section_description: In July 1908, the US was pulling itself out of the Panic of 1907, which occurred during a lengthy economic contraction between May 1907 and June 1908. This contraction led to suspension of cash payments by banks, a halt in lending, and a fall in the stock market, all resulting in significant economic disruption. Industrial production dropped, and the period saw the second-highest volume of bankruptcies to that date, with the dollar volume increasing nearly 50 percent.  Production fell over 10 percent, commodity prices dropped by more than 20 percent, imports fell by over 25 percent, and unemployment, which had been less than 3 percent prior to the panic, increased to 8 percent, resulting in fierce job competition. As of April 1908, there were 200,000 unemployed men in Illinois, with 55 percent of those residing outside of Chicago. Comparatively, neighboring Iowa and Missouri, which had populations that were 40 percent and 60 percent of Illinois' (5.5 million), had 2,000 and 43,000 unemployed men, respectively.
  Prior to the Panic, over one million immigrants had arrived in the U.S. during each of the previous two years.  However, after the Panic, the rate of arrival began declining by nearly 40 percent.
  Due to its dependence on mines, railroad, and vice industries, such as saloons, Springfield was largely insulated from much of the contraction.  However, the city still could not escape the economic downturn of the region, including new alcohol policies passed in 1908 that would suddenly put the employees at nearly 2,000 bars across the state out of work, including 20 percent of the saloons across Sangamon County.
  There was growing unrest among railroad workers after the Illinois Central Railroad began a "retrenchment" (cost-cutting) policy in December 1907.  For example, men in nearby Clinton saw their work week drop from seven to four days a week by March 1908.  That same month, the railroad also began streamlining positions to further cut expenses, which caused many to be "bumped down" to lower jobs, affecting younger workers.
  There was also uncertainty amongst Springfield's miners at the local and national level.  In November 1907, 4,000 miners in Danville went on strike when coal operators stopped paying workers in cash and began issuing checks.  Five months later, on April 1, 1908, Springfield's miners were nearly part of the 250,000 miners across the country who went on strike after their contracts expired and coal operators showed "no inclination" to make new contracts with the union.  Illinois' 60,000 miners subsequently "declared war" against coal operators. The unrest led to the shut down of Illinois' mines for a month, which had a significant negative impact on the freight business for the railroads as coal cars sat idle during that time.  The lack of coal movement also impacted road workers, who could not pave the roads without the coal. In early May, while over 35,000 of Illinois' miners voted to return to work, miners in two districts voted to move forward with the strike – Peoria and Springfield.  Around the same time, miners in neighboring Decatur voted to go on strike and, on June 8, 1908, roughly 500 miners called off two separate strikes, at the Pawnee and Pana mines, over work conditions.
  Ultimately, these events created a Springfield workforce where workers by and large had jobs, but the earning power of those jobs was being diminished, the security of those jobs was laced with uncertainty, and the respect paid to those who held those jobs was seemingly being diminished.  In surrounding counties the job prospects were similar or worse and the workforce was less diverse.
caption: Edwardsville Intelligencer. Mar 1908.
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