The strikes peaked on May Day, May 1, with a national strike for the eight-hour day; collectively they became what the economist and labor historian Selig Perlman later called the Great Upheaval. The size, extent, organization, and expanse of the strikes far exceeded those of 1877. This was not the spontaneous walkout of largely unorganized workers. Labor organizations of a size the country had never seen before coordinated, or tried to coordinate, most of them.
