Ep. 2. 50: The Great Divorce and the Strike of 1877

This milestone episode explores two defining crises that reshaped St. Louis in the late nineteenth century: the Great Divorce separating the city from the county and the explosive General Strike of 1877. Monsignor and Teresa trace how infrastructure costs, political rivalries, and tax inequities drove the city and county apart, while economic collapse and wage cuts ignited the largest general strike in American history. The discussion follows the spread of labor unrest from the railroads to factories, docks, and neighborhoods, revealing rare moments of interracial and interethnic cooperation—and their rapid unraveling. Together, these events expose the social fault lines beneath St. Louis’s Gilded Age prosperity and set the stage for profound changes in education, labor, and Catholic leadership in the years ahead.