A short thread about the surprising truth of 19th century train robberies—specifically, those of Jesse James. Let's ask a question about "social bandits": Did they target the big corporations—in this case, railroads? The answer shows how well historians must know the world they write about. 1/ - ThreadSky

tj-stiles.bsky.social • 69 days ago

A short thread about the surprising truth of 19th century train robberies—specifically, those of Jesse James.

Let's ask a question about "social bandits": Did they target the big corporations—in this case, railroads? The answer shows how well historians must know the world they write about.
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shohanabee76.bsky.social•69 days ago

Shatters the Robin Hood image completely. The RR was the means of transport of the real target -the money- which was independent of the RR. At a glance, this distinction would go unnoticed.

emory-f8.bsky.social•69 days ago

How interesting 😮

tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

The James-Younger Gang first robbed a train in Iowa in 1873. They didn't invent the crime, but they were for a time the most prolific or at least famous train robbers.

In all their robberies, they only robbed passengers once. Instead, they went to the baggage car and robbed the express safe.
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tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

The express safe did not belong to the railroad company. It belonged to an express company, which rented space in a train's baggage car. This is notable because politically active farmers (organized at the time into the Grangers & the Greenback Party) hated railroads, but not express companies.
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tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

Express companies moved cash for banks, thanks to the National Bank Act of 1863 and the creation of the greenback—a national paper currency, which the government did not redeem in gold. The act chartered national banks & required them to keep reserve deposits in New York (later other cities too).
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tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

The result was a seasonal flow of cash. After sending bundles of greenbacks east all year (there was no Federal Reserve), the "country banks" drew down their deposits in the fall for the harvest and "moving of the crops." Farmers, merchants, & shippers needed cash for all their transactions.
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tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

Side note: Late nineteenth-century stock market panics tended to be in the fall, when a tight money market in New York led banks to call in short-term loans to stock brokers.

Anyway, the James-Younger Gang understood this seasonal cash flow, & robbed trains going in the right direction.
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tj-stiles.bsky.social•69 days ago

But they were often unlucky. Just a few thousand dollars was a big score in the 1870s and '80s, but frequently they just missed trains carrying much more. Still, they sparked manhunts—not by the hated railroads, but by express companies. Adams Express hired the Pinkertons in 1874, for example.
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