Bloody Thursday and the 1934 San Francisco General Strike
During the 1934 West Coast maritime strike, employers and city officials tried to reopen San Francisco's port with strikebreakers and police escorts. On 5 July, police fought pickets with tear gas, clubs, and gunfire. Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise were shot in the back and killed near Mission and Steuart Streets. Their deaths helped turn public opinion and led into a four-day regional general strike.
- When
- 5 July 1934Exact day
- Where
- Former maritime union headquarters at Mission and Steuart StreetsUnited States · Exact site
- Evidence
- VerifiedSources reviewed below
- Sensitivity
- Highly sensitive subjectPresented with care
The place
Before
What existed before
Waterfront hiring operated through a discriminatory daily shape-up and a company-backed union. Long shifts, dangerous cargo work, arbitrary selection, and blacklisting left workers with little control. On 9 May 1934, longshore workers struck across the West Coast for a coastwide agreement, shorter hours, higher pay, and a union hiring hall.
Cause
Trigger and conditions
On 5 July, trucks with police escorts attempted to move cargo through the picket line at Pier 38. Fighting spread along the waterfront. Outside the maritime union headquarters at Mission and Steuart, plainclothes officers shot three men; Sperry and Bordoise died, while Charles Olsen survived.
Sequence
Timeline
Coastwide maritime strike begins
Longshore workers walk out for union recognition, hiring reform, hours, and wages.
Bloody Thursday
Police attack waterfront pickets; Sperry and Bordoise are killed near Mission and Steuart.
Funeral procession fills Market Street
Public mourning for the two men shifts support toward the strikers.
San Francisco General Strike
Workers across many trades halt much of the city's activity for four days.
After
Aftermath
A solemn funeral procession on 9 July drew tens of thousands along Market Street. Union support widened, and workers across the Bay Area joined the San Francisco General Strike from 16 to 19 July. The maritime strike continued until the end of the month and moved to federal arbitration.
Long-term consequences
Arbitration produced a coastwide contract, a six-hour day, wage gains, and hiring halls with union dispatchers. The strike transformed maritime unionism on the Pacific Coast and became a major episode in the rise of industrial labor organization during the 1930s.
Significance
The essential question
Why this still matters
The corner makes visible how workplace rules can become street conflict. The strike was not only a dispute over pay: it concerned who controlled access to work, whether workers could organize across ports, and how government power was used during that contest.
What remains today
The old waterfront has been transformed, but Mission and Steuart remain public streets. Longshore workers continue to commemorate 5 July as Bloody Thursday, and oral histories, union archives, photographs, and the National Park Service preserve the strike's record.
Evidence
Sources
Sources support specific claims; inclusion does not imply that every source is equally authoritative on every question.
- 01The Longshoremen's and General Strikes of 1934
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
National Park Service overview of Bloody Thursday and the largest strike in West Coast history.Open source - 02Remembering Bloody Thursday: July 5, 1934 on the San Francisco waterfront
International Longshore and Warehouse Union · Harvey Schwartz
Union oral-history synthesis with the strike demands, Pier 38 confrontation, exact shooting site, victims, funeral, and settlement.Open source - 031934 Longshore Strike
University of Washington Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium
Research project placing the San Francisco events within the 83-day coastwide strike and the growth of industrial unionism.Open source
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