Saint John's trolley-toppling railway strike of 1914 inspired N.B. playwright's new work

Just two weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, a railway strike that turned into trolley-toppling riots broke out in Saint John.

More than a century later, one New Brunswick playwright is taking that pivotal moment in labour history and bringing it back to the forefront.

"You have to imagine, in the main uptown street in Saint John, 10,000 people rioting, turning over streetcars, setting them on fire, cavalry charge from the barracks by the Royal [Canadian] Dragoons to try to disperse the crowd," said playwright and Université de Moncton professor Thomas Hodd. 

"It's just this amazing, epic event that happened in Saint John history, and almost nobody in this province probably has ever heard of it."

Hodd's play, titled O'Brien, will be touring the province starting Wednesday with Theatre New Brunswick. The play is based on the July 1914 event which started with simmering tensions between the newly formed union and the railway company.

According to the website for the Frank and Ella Hatheway Labour Exhibit Centre in Saint John, the railway company fired the union leader and more than 130 men walked out on strike. 

A crowd of supportive citizens began to form over the next three days and a riot eventually broke out. The mayor at the time read the Riot Act and authorized the deployment of a small detachment of Dragoons. 

The crowd overturned two stalled streetcars and took to the company's powerhouse, causing a city-wide blackout.

Eventually, a deal was negotiated between the sides and trolley service returned to normal.

And while Hodd is only now bringing the story to the stage, this event has been on his mind since the early '90s when he worked for the New Brunswick Museum as a historical interpreter.

He was given the task of sharing stories with the public relating to objects in the museum. Using the trolley strike and a military uniform, he wrote a five-minute monologue to share with tourists. 

Then, just a couple of years ago, the story came back to him with international conflicts growing — such as the invasion of Ukraine — and the fight for reproductive rights in the United States. Coupled with that, Hodd learned that 2023 was an exceptional one for labour strikes.

The amount of disruption — measured using person-days not worked — reached an 18-year high in 2023.

Hodd said everything happening in the world sounded similar to the larger issues at play in 1914.

"I thought, 'Wow, maybe this is the time to try to finally put the story to paper and to put it on stage,'" he said.

But when he decided to write the story, he didn't want to write about the mayor or the union head or a military leader. He wanted to tell it using the average working-class union member. 

"Having grown up as the son of a working-class union worker, I understood a bit about what it means to have to make those choices and what it means to deal with striking and putting food on your table," said Hodd.

So the story is told from the perspective of a third-generation Irish New Brunswick family.

The family dynamic is one of dysfunction, with one extended family member being a prominent local suffragist, a few of them working for the railway company and one of the sons being a member of the local militia. 

Hodd said he likes to describe the play as a heritage drama as opposed to a historical drama because the story is rooted in the family, exploring the real conflicts and tensions that would have existed at the time.

Hodd said he hopes people can see themselves in the family — from the dysfunction to the real situation of potential job loss and struggling to make ends meet.

"This is ultimately, I think … a story of resilience and sacrifice."