The student as strikebreaker: college youth and the crisis of masculinity in the early twentieth century

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, male college students represented a major, and often critically important source of strikebreakers. While administrators frowned on many student extra-curricular activities, they strongly encouraged strikebreaking. Students enthusiastically embraced strikebreaking not just to display antagonism toward labor, but even more importantly to prove their manhood. Strikebreaking provided the collegian with his best opportunity, short of military combat, to test his strength and nerve. It exposed him to danger and provided an opportunity to fight. The early twentieth century 'crisis of masculinity' in the upper and middle classes was manifested in men's repeated efforts to demonstrate their virility. Most men were involved in violent sports only vicariously, as spectators, but strikebreaking permitted direct participation in 'daring deeds.' Engineering students were also drawn into strikebreaking by their profession's new antipathy toward labor. Management coveted their services because they often represented the only available pool of skilled labor.
In March 1905, Columbia University students deserted their classes en masse to help break a strike of subway workers against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the biggest strike New [...]