UMC in 1912. With the start of World War I in Europe in 1914, Bridgeport became a new world arsenal some called "the Essen of America" and Bridgeport's population exploded, growing by nearly 50 percent in a 20-month period. After receiving an order from the Russian Empire in 1915 for one million rifles with 400,000,000 cartridges, Remington UMC built a factory complex of thirteen buildings with 80 acres of floor space; and hired 1,500 new workers per month until 17,000 were engaged in arms production. The Russian order was nearing completion when the Russian Revolution deposed Czar Nicholas II and refused to pay for the rifles and ammunition. The factory complex exceeded the needs of Remington UMC after Armistice Day, and was used by General Electric after 1920. Rapidly growing industry led to labor unrest. As a city planning consultant put it, "Wages have risen, but so have rents, the price of real estate and the cost of living," going on to give an example a worker earning the prevailing wage whose family had been turned out on the street when unable to meet a 25 percent increase in rent. In the summer of 1915, a series of strikes demanding the eight-hour day began in Bridgeport. They were so successful that they spread throughout the Northeast. While thousands took part in the Bridgeport strikes of 1915, few were actually union members and many were women who had been denied membership in craft unions. For instance, the Bryant Electric Company strike was started by five hundred women assemblers and a handful of men who walked off the job. The other workers joined the strike and after two weeks the company acceded to the workers' demands for an eight-hour day, overtime pay and union representation. Similar strikes with similar results played out at factories throughout the city and in the course of a few months, Bridgeport was transformed into an eight-hour day city. Bridgeport came out of World War I and its wartime strikes with a radicalized labor force which, in combination with the labor troubles of the Great Depression, ultimately led to socialist Jasper McLevy occupying city hall from 1933 to 1957. Bridgeport's industrial growth was fueled by, and attracted, immigration from overseas. By 1920, 32.4 percent of the population was foreign born with another 40.4 percent being the children of immigrants. As for the labor force, 73 percent were foreign