The 1919 Boston Police Strike Project

On September 9, 1919 Boston police officers went on strike in hopes of gaining long promised improvements in wages and working conditions. Of the force’s 1,544 men, 1,177 walked off the job. None of the strikers ever worked as Boston police officers again.

Relying on volunteer genealogists, the 1919 Boston Police Strike Project aims to document and preserve the lives of the police officers involved in this highly influential labor strike which had lasting effects in the City of Boston and across the United States. By September 9, 2019 (the centennial of the strike), the project hopes to have compiled a biographical encyclopedia documenting each of the officers for the benefit of researchers, historians, students, and others, including family members of the strikers.

Join Margaret R. Sullivan, Records Manager and Archivist at the Boston Police Department Archives, to learn more about this collaborative project and how you might use it in your own research.