Oral history interview with Loy Connelly Cloniger, June 18, 1980

Former mechanic and streetcar foreman Loy Connelly Cloniger recalls the 1919 Charlotte Streetcar Strike by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. He was present for a shooting that killed five strikers, though as night foreman, he did not participate in the strike. The strike accomplished nothing: soon after the shooting the strikers returned to work without the raise they demanded. Though perhaps not useful as a source of detailed information about the strike, this interview could be important as an eyewitness account of the 1919 strike and first-hand memories of streetcar work in early 20th-century Charlotte.