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Working-Class Americanism The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960 / Gary Gerstle.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Gerstle, Gary, 1954-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Textile workers.
- Textile industry.
- Textile industry--Rhode Island--Woonsocket--History--20th century.
- Textile workers--Rhode Island--Woonsocket--History--20th century.
- Rhode Island--Woonsocket.
- Genre:
- History.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (388 pages)
- Edition:
- [New ed.].
- Place of Publication:
- Chichester : Princeton University Press, 2002.
- Summary:
- In this classic interpretation of the 1930s rise of industrial unionism, Gary Gerstle challenges the popular historical notion that American workers' embrace of "Americanism" and other patriotic sentiments in the post-World War I years indicated their fundamental political conservatism. He argues that Americanism was a complex, even contradictory, language of nationalism that lent itself to a wide variety of ideological constructions in the years between World War I and the onset of the Cold War. Using the rich and textured material left behind by New England's most powerful textile union--the Independent Textile Union of Woonsocket, Rhode Island--Gerstle uncovers for the first time a more varied and more radical working-class discourse.
- Contents:
- Cover Page
- Half-title Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- List of illustrations and tables page
- Preface to the Princeton edition
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I. Ethnictown, 1875-1929
- 1. The French Canadians
- La ville la plus frangaise aux Etats Unis, 1875-1914
- The prewar world of the French-Canadian worker
- The crisis of an ethnic order, 1914-1929
- Working-class stirrings, 1922-1929
- 2. The Franco-Belgians
- The aristocrats
- Brave ouvrier et vaillant proletaire
- The Americanization of Joseph Schmetz
- Part II. The emergence of an industrial union, 1929-1936
- 3. Beginnings, 1929-1934
- The peculiarities of an industry
- The birth of a union
- Divided employers
- A network of mulespinners
- 4. Citywide mobilization, 1934-1936
- The strike of 1934
- The union experience
- Part III. Working-class heyday, 1936-1941
- 5. "A new, progressive Americanism
- Unveiling a radical dream
- The arrival of Lawrence Spitz, Popular Front radical
- The nationalist dimension
- The progressive dimension
- The democratic dimension
- The (missing) traditionalist dimension
- 6. Ethnic-style unionism
- Belgian unionism, French-Canadian style
- The transformation ofshopfloor life
- Americanism on parade
- The limits of industrial democracy
- 7. Ethnic renaissance
- Republican reformation
- A New Deal in municipal affairs
- Christian democracy
- Part IV. The crucial decade - and after, 1941-1960
- 8. The struggle for union power, 1941 -1946
- Spitz's bid for power, 1941 -1943
- The ethnic corporatists' triumph, 1944-1946
- 9. Be American!"": refashioning a political language," 1944_1946
- Catholic corporatism
- Anticommunism
- Cultural pluralism
- Resistance and capitulation to national authority
- 10. The failure of two dreams, 1946-1960.
- From industrial democracy to industrial pluralism
- Economic decline, union collapse, 1949-1960
- Conclusion
- Appendix A: Locals organized by ITU, 1932-1955
- Appendix B: A note on union sources and a list of interviewees
- Index.
- Notes:
- Previous edition: 1989.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 9780691228235
- 069122823X
- OCLC:
- 1241446809
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