Organized labor and American politics, 1894-1994 : the labor-liberal alliance / edited by Kevin Boyle.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Boyle, Kevin, 1960-

Series:

SUNY series in American labor history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor unions--Political activity--United States--History.

Labor unions.

Labor unions--Political activity.

United States.

History.

Liberalism--United States--History.

Liberalism.

United States--Politics and government--19th century.

Politics and government.

United States--Politics and government--20th century.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

x, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [1998]

Summary:

Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994 traces the rise and fall of labor's power over the course of the twentieth century. It does so through provocative and engaging essays written by distinguished scholars of the modern labor movement. The essays focus on different times and places, from turn-of-the-century steel mills to the streets of 1930s Detroit to the halls of Congress in the 1990s. Drawing on a broad range of primary sources, the authors adopt a variety of approaches, from broad syntheses to careful case studies. Altogether, the essays tell a single story, of workers struggling to find a voice for themselves and their unions within the nation they helped to build. It is a story of victories won and of defeats endured.

Contents:

Part 1 Building the Labor-Liberal Alliance

1. The Rules of the Game: Class Politics in Twentieth-Century America / Richard Oestreicher 19

2. Producerism is Consciousness of Class: Ironworkers' and Steelworkers' Views on Political Economy, 1894-1920 / Robert Asher 51

3. Negotiating the State: Frank Walsh and the Transformation of Labor's Political Culture in Progressive America / Julie Greene 71

4. The Failure of Minnesota Farmer-Laborism / Peter Rachleff 103

5. Autoworkers, Electoral Politics, and the Convergence of Class and Race: Detroit, 1937-1945 / Bruce Nelson 121

Part 2 The Labor-Liberal Alliance at Work

6. The CIO Political Strategy in Historical Perspective: Creating a High-Road Economy in the Postwar Era / Stephen Amberg 159

7. Thoughts on Defeating Right-to-Work: Reflections on Two Referendum Campaigns / Gilbert J. Gall 195

8. Little More than Ashes: The UAW and American Reform in the 1960s / Kevin Boyle 217

9. Labor Law Revision and the End of the Postwar Labor Accord / Gary M. Fink 239.

Notes:

Based on essays originally published at a conference on labor and politics held at the George Meany Center, Silver Springs, Maryland on November 14, 1994.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0791439518

0791439526

OCLC:

38073299