David Stowell, Associate Professor of History at Keene State College in Keene, NH, looks at the injurious impact of the railroads on everyday life in Albany, NY (and in other cities throughout the US) in the post-Civil War era. He examines the developing opposition to the railroads by workers and especially by small business owners, opposition which finally exploded in the Great Strike of 1877. Stowell is the author of Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (University of Chicago Press, 1999). This talk was one of two lectures delivered in "Railroad Heritage: Entrepreneurship, Technology and Social Impacts," part of the transportation series lectures of the Albany Heritage Program of 2002. Recorded at the Albany International Airport, November 26, 2002.
http://www.albany.edu/talkinghistory/arch2003jan-june.html