San Francisco General Strike, 1934.

The west coast longshoremen faced terrible hardships in the 1930s, made even worse by the Great Depression and by a union that was largely indifferent to their needs. In May, 1934, their frustration boiled over in a waterfront strike in San Francisco that soon became a general strike involving workers and unions throughout the city. The employers mobilized both public and private police forces in an attempt to crush the strike, and the strikers were subjected to violent police attacks, like the one shown here.