Labor in America

Melvyn Dubofsky is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History & Sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, USA. He has published extensively on labor history and has been a key figure in the field since the 1960s. Joseph A. McCartin is a Professor of History and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor & the Working Poor at Georgetown University. He has authored and edited numerous books on U.S. labor history and is a prominent voice in contemporary labor studies.

List of Figures ix

Preface to the Tenth Edition xii

Acknowledgments xiv

List of Abbreviations xv

1 Laboring a Nation into Being 1

Varieties of Bound Labor 2

Patterns of Control, Resistance, and Accommodation 10

The Agency of an Embryonic Working Class 13

Workers, Revolution, and Nation Building 18

2 Labor in the New Republic, 1790 to 1830 22

The Intensification of Agricultural Slavery 23

Scraping By: Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and the Limits of Resistance 27

From Journeymen’s Organizations to Unions 36

3 The Protean Power of Organization, 1828 to 1840 45

Workingmen’s Parties and the Emergence of a Politics of Labor 47

Labor Organizing in the 1830s 55

A National Labor Movement 58

Employer Counterattack 61

The National Trades’ Union 63

The Decline of Unionism 66

4 Irrepressible Conflicts, 1840 to 1860 68

The Factory System and New Technologies 69

Immigration, Urbanization, and Divisions of Ethnicity and Race 73

Reformism and the Antebellum Working Class 76

Reawakening 10-hour Movement 80

Rebuilding Unions 82

The Coming of War 84

5 The Incomplete Triumph of Free Labor, 1861 to 1877 88

Wartime Conditions and Expanded Worker Organizing 89

Black Labor and Emancipation 92

The Limits of Reconstruction 94

National Labor Union 96

The Eight-Hour Movement, Cooperatives, and the Greenback-Labor Movement 103

Depression, Upheaval, and Fragmentation 107

6 The Great Upheaval, 1877 to 1887 111

Changing Economic and Social Context 115

The Origins and Rise of the Knights of Labor 118

The Knights of Labor at Flood Tide 126

The Decline of the Knights 130

Denouement: Haymarket, Richmond, and the Thibodaux Massacre 132

7 The Rise of the American Federation of Labor, 1886 to 1896 137

The Appeal of Trade Unionism: From Washerwomen to Skilled Craftsmen 137

Origins of the New Unionism 140

Samuel Gompers and the Founding of the American Federation of Labor 142

Autonomy, Skill, Race, and Gender: AFL Principles and Policies 146

The Homestead Strike, Depression, and the Limits of AFL Unionism 150

Eugene V. Debs and the Pullman Strike 155

Trade Unionism in Turbulent Times 160

8 Labor at the Dawn of the Progressive Era, 1896 to 1908 163

The Failure of Populism and the Birth of the Socialist Party 164

Progressive Era Experiments with Labor–Capital Cooperation 169

Labor’s Limited Breakthrough: The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 172

Labor, Law, and Increasing Employer Resistance 177

AFL Political Action and a Nascent Labor–Democratic Alliance 181

9 Winds of Change, 1908 to 1916 184

Stirrings of Reform 184

Emergence of the New Unionism 186

The Radical Unionism of the Industrial Workers of the World 190

The Spirit of the IWW 193

The IWW’s Challenge to the AFL 196

Labor Upheaval, Federal Action, and a Budding Political Alliance 201

10 War, Reform, and Reaction, 1914 to 1922 205

Repression of the IWW and the Socialist Party 206

Toward Industrial Democracy 209

African Americans, Women, and Mexican Immigrants 211

Peace in Europe, Class Conflict at Home 214

The Last Throes of Postwar Labor Militancy 220

The Open Shop American Plan and Labor’s Deferred Dreams 223

11 The 1920s 227

Welfare Capitalism 230

The Failure of Insurgent Politics, 1922 to 1924 234

The AFL after Gompers 236

Crisis and Glimmers of Change: Miners, Clothing Workers, and Pullman Porters 238

Depression and the Demoralization of Organized Labor 241

12 The New Deal and the Rebirth of Labor Militancy 245

Section 7(a) and the Revival of Organizing 246

The Wagner Act and the Second New Deal 253

The Emergence of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) 260

Labor and Roosevelt’s Reelection 268

13 The CIO and the New Deal Order 271

The Little Steel Strike, the Roosevelt Recession, and the Resurgence of the AFL 278

The Consolidation of the CIO and a More Inclusive Union Membership 281

A Final New Deal Victory: The Fair Labor Standards Act 286

Labor and the Emerging New Deal Political Order 288

Encroaching War and the 1940 Election 291

14 World War II 295

Workers, Unions, and Wartime Labor Policy 298

The NWLB and Labor Politics 308

Race, Gender, and the Changing Union Movement 312

Demobilization and the Postwar Strike Wave 314

A New Industrial Relations System 319

15 Workers and Unions in the Postwar Era 321

Anticommunism, the Politics of 1948, and the Purge of the Labor Left 325

The Politics of Collective Action in the Emergent New Deal Order 328

The Heyday of Collective Bargaining 331

A United Labor Movement 333

The Travails of a Sleepy Monopoly 338

16 Labor’s Long Sixties, 1960 to 1973 344

Confronting Automation, Alienation, and Structural Inequalities 348

Labor, Civil Rights, and the Great Society 351

Public Employees, Farmworkers, and a Diversifying Union Movement 353

War and Division 357

The Challenges of Solidarity 359

17 The Great Reversal, 1974 to 1990s 363

Economic Crisis and Its Aftermath 363

Restructuring the Labor Force 365

The Rise of Conservative Politics and Neoliberal Policy 369

The Reagan Revolution 375

The Post-Reagan Political Economy and Labor Policy 380

The Crisis of Unionism 384

18 Renewal and Setback, 1990s to 2009 388

The Impetus for Change 389

A Change of Direction for Labor 394

From Setbacks to Schism 398

Fissuring, Financialization, and the Great Recession 403

The Obama Moment 408

19 Resiliency and Disruption, 2009 to 2020 411

The Impact of the Great Recession 412

A Renewed Assault on Unions and Collective Bargaining 415

Obama’s Mixed Legacy for Workers 418

Labor’s Green Shoots 422

Workers, Unions, and the 2016 Presidential Election 428

The Trump Years 430

Labor and the 2020 Election 433

20 Making the Road by Walking: Labor in the 2020s 435

Further Reading 446

Index 449