Railroad receiverships let federal judges suppress strikes through contempt power.

Evidence

A judge with a will could find a way. Many railroads in the 1870s, and later, were in receivership—​in other words, they had collapsed financially, and were taken over and run by “receivers.” Technically, then, they were wards of the federal courts. This gave judges a golden opportunity to meddle in railroad labor disputes. Thomas S. Drummond, judge of the seventh circuit, made virtuoso use of contempt power to combat the strikes of 1877, against railroads that happened to be in receivership. Later the judges invented, or discovered, the labor injunction, a stronger and more powerful piece of legal artillery. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3168

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains receivership and how it made companies wards of federal courts - useful institutional vocabulary for the course.