National Guardsmen firing into the mob at Loomis and 49th Streets on July 7th, 1894. Illustration by G.W. Peters, from a sketch by G.A. Coffin. Published in Harper's Weekly, July 21, 1894. The Pullman Strike comprised two interrelated strikes in 1894, first by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chicago, and then, when that failed, a national boycott against all trains that carried Pullman passenger cars, which lasted from May 11 to July 20 and was a turning point for US labor law.