Initially, the strike was aimed at the Montgomery Ward department store, but it affected almost every employer in the metropolitan region after the Teamsters walked out.

[1] Court testimony in late summer revealed that various businessmen (including the general manager of Montgomery Ward) had taken bribes to lock out their workers.

[5] The strike is generally considered to have lasted 103 days from the date the Teamsters entered the fray on April 6 until its conclusion on July 19, when most unions voted to withdraw from the dispute.

[4] The strike is considered one of the most important of early 20th-century American history because of its violence, the strength and depth of inter-union solidarity, and the way it dramatically weakened public support for unions nationwide.

In January 1902, Brass Molder's Union Local 83 struck Stromberg-Carlson and Western Electric, seeking to win the closed shop in collective bargaining negotiations.

By April, 5,000 workers were on the picket line, with all 26 local members of the National Tailors' Association (a coalition of clothing manufacturers and retailers) struck.

[2][4][5][11] Teamsters President Cornelius Shea targeted Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Company in particular, as these were the leaders in the National Tailors' Association.

[12] The sympathy strike had not occurred earlier in the year for fear it would have imperiled the candidacy of Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne for Mayor of Chicago.

[1] Riots occurred on April 7 when Montgomery Ward attempted to use wagons driven by strikebreakers to deliver raw materials and finished goods.

The most serious that day involved 1,000 striking workers and sympathizers, who attacked several heavily guarded wagons on Union Street.

Strikers hurled bricks and stones, and assaulted any African American or wagon driver caught on the streets.

During a stone-throwing melee on the Rush Street bridge, strikebreakers opened fire on striking workers, leading to one death.

The EA also raised $1 million (about $27 million in 2017 dollars) to establish, on April 13, the Employers' Teaming Association-a new company which, within a matter of weeks, bought out a large number of team owners and imported hundreds of African American strikebreakers from St. Louis to work as teamsters and drive the wagons.

But on April 23, Montgomery Ward declared it would defer to the decision of the Employers' Association, and the EA announced a day later that no striking workers should be rehired.

[20] Local and state courts issued numerous injunctions against the unions, ordering them to stop picketing and return to work.

One of the first, if interpreted literally and enforced, would have stripped the unions of their rights to strike: :You are enjoined and restrained from in any manner molesting, interfering with, hindering, obstructing or stopping any of Montgomery Ward & Co.'s agents, servants and employés in the lawful operation and business of the company at Chicago or elsewhere, and also from molesting, interfering with, hindering, obstructing or stopping any person going to or from the company's place of business.

In late May, nearly all the building trade unions in Chicago agreed to return to work, significantly weakening the strike.

[4][25] But despite threats by Shea to call 8,000 truck drivers out on strike, clothing stores unaffiliated with the EA refused to break ranks and settle with the Teamsters.

[26] The strike ended not through the efforts of the EA or the unions, but due to the allegations of graft made by John C. Driscoll.

At the time, Driscoll was secretary (the highest officer) of the Team Owners' Association, the employer group which had locked out the Teamsters after the sympathy strike which began on April 6.

Thorne and other employers countered that Shea and other union leaders had asked for bribes ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 to call off the current strike.

[28] On June 3, the grand jury returned bribery and conspiracy indictments against Shea and 19 other union leaders, but none against the employers.

[17] The evening of June 3, Thorne swore out arrest warrants for Shea on charges of criminal libel for making in-court accusations of bribery.

A serious challenge to his control of the Teamsters emerged in August 1905, but he was able to beat back the opposition through a combination of vote fraud and bribery.