3500syl

Instructor: Robert H. Zieger. Office is 236 Keene-Flint. Hours: M&W, 1:30-2:30 p.m.; F, 9-10 a.m. Phone: 392-0271, ex. 252. E-mail: zieger@ufl.edu[.] The address for my home page is: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rzieger. This site contains a copy of this syllabus with a link to running account of class activities. Students are responsible for checking this website regularly for announcements and materials.

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Course objectives: To acquaint students with the historical experience of working people in the US; to encourage thoughtful consideration of problems relating to class, race, and gender in US history; to help students to sharpen research, writing, and analytical skills.

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Required readings: Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers; Robert Zieger and Gilbert J. Gall, American Workers, American Unions (3d ed.); Leon Fink, The Maya of Morgantown. These books, along with a coursepack of required readings, are available at Gator Textbook, 3501 SW 2d Ave. Suite D (374-4500). Note: I donate my share of royalties from student purchase of AWAU, which will amount to about $20.00, to the Department of History's George E. Pozzetta fund.

Exams, grading: There are four elements involved in grading: periodic reading quizzes (20%; three lowest scores and/or absences dropped; no make-ups; students must score 60% or better on quizzes to pass course); a mid-term exam (due February 23; 20%); final exam (; 25%); and term project, described at this link, 30%). There is no such thing as a lost paper anymore; it is expected that students will keep a true copy of any paper that they turn in.

Department of History notices

1. "If you are a history major or minor, and wish to receive important announcements on courses, scholarships and awards at your email address, please sign on to the History Department listserv. Send an email message to: majordomo@clas.ufl.edu and in the text of the message type the following: subscribe

http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.htm . I'll be happy to advise and counsel on these matters.

Note: Students are expected to attend class regularly and to have completed the reading assignment indicated for each session, below. In the event of absence, students will want to consult the website, clicking on sessions to review the class session(s) missed. There will be frequent quizzes on reading assignments, some of which will be posted on the website before the class in which the quiz is to be administered. But do note that in order to receive credit for a quiz, the student must attend the whole class session. Since these quizzes are designed to encourage attendance and discussion of assigned reading, there will be no make-up quizzes for any reason. I will drop the lowest 3 scores (including zeroes for non-attendance) in calculating the final quiz grade. Students must achieve a grade of 60% or higher on the quizzes to pass the course.

Class sessions

January 5-Introduction

January 7-Laurie, Artisans into Workers, pp. 113-140

January 10-Library session conducted by Shelley Arlen, History Bibliographer

January 12-Laurie, 141-75

January 14--Letwin, "Interracial Unionism, Gender, and 'Social Equality'" (coursepack)

January 19-Laurie, 176-210

January 21- Laurie, 211-20; register first paper subject

January 24-Ichioka, "Asian Immigrant Coal Miners. . . ." (coursepack)

January 26-Zieger & Gall, American Workers, 1-18; register first paper sources

January 28-Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches" (coursepack)

January 31-Z&G, 18-32

February 2-Arnesen, "'Like Banquo's Ghost, It Will Not Down'" (coursepack)

February 4-On-line reading "Socialism"; first paper due

February 9,11-Z&G, 33-42

February 14-Z&G, 42-49; questions for mid-term distributed

February 16-Hall, "Disorderly Women" (coursepack)

February 18-Z&G, 50-65

February 21-Film: The Inheritance; turn in mid-term exam.

February 23-Z&G, 66-75

February 25-Edsforth, Asher, Boryczka, "The Speedup"(coursepack)

March 7--Z&G, 75-82

March 9-Z&G, 82-103; register second paper subject

March 11-Continue

March 14-Z&G, 104-17; register second paper sources

March 16-Z&G, 117-26

March 18-Nelson, "Organized Labor and the Struggle for Black Equality" (coursepack);

March 21-Z&G, 126-43; second paper due

March 23-Milkman, "Rosie the Riveter Revisited" (coursepack)

March 25-Z&G, 144-52

March 28-Z&G, 152-68

March 30-Z&G, 168-81

April 1-Z&G, 181-213

April 3-Z&G, 214-28

April 6-Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., . . . and the Memphis Sanitation Strike" (cp)

April 8-Z&G, 229-39; Freeman, "Hardhats" (coursepack)

<>April 11-Nancy MacLean, "The Hidden History of Affirmative Action" To access this article, do the following:

1. These instructions are for Off campus access. If you are using an on-campus computer, you can ignore the first part.

[2. After accessing the Smathers Library home page, locate the Off Campus Access choice and click on it. At the command, enter the required information.]

3. Once having access, return to the Home Page.

4. Under the Find column, click on Journals

5. This will bring you to a Finding Journals option. Use the Quick e-journal option and scroll to the Title equals option. Then in the right hand box, type in Feminist Studies. Click on Search.

6. Click on the first option, Academic Search Premier

7. This will bring you to the listing for Feminist Studies. Scroll to 1999 and click on it; then click on Spring. Item no. 2 is the Nancy MacLean [actually, they misspell it as Maclean] article that is assigned. Click on it and you will get the article. Note that it's in a non-PDF format.

8. Read it carefully.

Note: The actual link is http://search.epnet.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=1927935

Depending on how the computer feels that day, you may be able to short-circuit steps 1-7 and simply enter this URL and hit Enter.

<>

April 13-Z&G, 240-70

April 15-Contemporary labor issues

April 18--Fink, Maya of Morgantown (there will be a 10 point quiz on this book)

April 20-Final exam questions distributed; course evaluation; third paper due.

April 28-Turn in final exam on or before April 28, 7:30 p.m.

*****
Term project

Your term project is divided into three parts and revolves around the theme of work in modern US history.

Parts 1 and 2. Students are to identify two occupations*, one for the period c. 1870-1920, the other for the period c.1920-1970, to investigate and to write short papers on. The first of these papers is due February 4; the second, March 21. Each paper must show familiarity with one significant scholarly source and one primary source**, as well as make use of relevant material in the course's required reading. These papers are to be about 1000 words in length (i.e., 4 type written, double-spaced pages). They should broadly reflect on the occupation the student has chosen to investigate, commenting, for example, on the character of the work, its role in the economy, the special features or problems associated with the occupation, the racial, ethnic, and/or gender dimensions of the occupation. In particular, students should seek to convey something about the lived experience of the men and/or women who plied the particular trade being examined.

Part 3.

Revised format for final part of term project.

Having read Fink's Maya of Morgantown, search through a data base such as Lexis Nexis Academic, Pro Quest, Ethnic News Watch, and other databases for news articles and commentaries on a distinctive ethnic group and the role of its members in the contemporary (i.e., past 20 years) US labor force. In your paper, reflect broadly on the changing demographics of the US labor force. You may want to consider such questions as:

Why have these workers come to the US at this particular time?

What sorts of work do they typically perform?

How important are they in the US economy?

Has their presence been associated with any problems of social conflict, cultural antagonism, and/or intra-class tension (i.e., tension within the US working class)?

Do they complement or compete with native American workers?

Do their presence and their circumstances have any implications for the labor movement?

How does the recent influx of immigrants and temporary workers from diverse areas compare and contrast with those of earlier periods in US labor history (i.e., early 20^th century; the Great Migration of African Americans)?

Use Fink's account of the Maya in North Carolina for purposes of comparison and contrast. You will also find it helpful to consult Zieger and Gall, chapter 8, and the related bibliography on pp. 276-77 for this assignment.

This paper should be about 1250 (i.e., 6 typed, double-spaced pages) words in length.

Collectively, the term project counts for 30% of the class grade-half for the first two shorter papers, half for the final, longer paper.

I expect to be closely involved in students' choice of subjects and readings. For the first two, shorter papers, students will be asked to indicate their choice of occupation to study and to register their readings with me. Students likely will choose an occupation from among those mentioned or discussed in the required reading. In tracking down a relevant secondary source (see below), they may find JSTOR and/or America: History and Life, both accessible from the UF Library website, particularly helpful. As to a primary source that deals with the chosen occupation, Google searches often work, but note too that there are UF library sites that can also be helpful, notably ProQuest and Nexis-Lexis. Once a student has identified an occupation and perhaps located some relevant sources, she may want to talk to me or e-mail me for my reactions and suggestions, which I'll be happy to provide.

With respect to writing these short papers, I specify no exact format. Some students may want to try their hand with imaginative reconstruction. Others may want to confine themselves to straightforward reportage. Whatever format chosen, students should make a genuine effort to enter imaginatively into the lives of the people of he past in depicting and commenting upon the occupation chosen. I place a great deal of emphasis on writing in grading these papers and expect students to be thoroughly familiar with the linked writing rules.

Each paper must include a specific bibliographical reference to the secondary source (author, full title of article or book, journal in which the article was published, and date of publication) and a specific reference to the primary source (in many cases, this will be a URL).
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*By occupation I mean, for the purposes of this assignment, wage-earning employment of a non-professional and non-supervisory or non-managerial character.

**Scholarly source: An authoritative account of the industry, occupation, and/or workers' lives based on through examination of relevant sources. The book or journal article chosen should be documented (i.e., have footnotes or endnotes; and, in the case of books, a bibliography) and should have been issued by a recognized publisher (likely a university press) or academic

journal. Primary source: A discussion or investigation of the occupation, and/or of the lives of the men and/or women who plied it, produced during the period under examination (i.e., 1870-1920; 1920-1970; since 1970). Examples would be: period magazine articles; newspaper reports; published oral history interviews with workers; testimony from court cases, legislative investigations, or similar public material; published memoirs or autobiographies of workers.

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How to write

1. The first paragraph of a historical paper, be it a research paper, short synopsis, or book review, should contain the author's central thesis or conclusions. The author must mention all important actors, as well as inclusive dates of coverage and basic concepts or historical developments in the first paragraph.

2. Use vigorous, direct language. Short sentences work. Employ concrete, precise nouns and active verbs, being careful, for example, to find active substitutes for forms of the verb "to be" and "to go." Inexperienced writers often erroneously think that convoluted language, long sentences, and pretentious diction impress teachers.

3. Use the active, not the passive voice, in your prose. The active voice places the subject before the action. Active voice: On opening day, Barry Bonds
blasted his 71st home run. Passive voice: His 71st home run was blasted by Barry Bonds on opening day. (See the elaboration of this point below).

4. Avoid all first-person or surrogate references. By "surrogate" I mean such terms as one, we, the current writer.

5. Avoid discussion of method, intentions, and structure. There is no need to intrude explicit statements of authorial intention ("In the following pages, I am going to argue that. . . ."-just state the argument) or to deliver bulletins about the paper's structure ("This paper is divided into three sections. . . ."-just state your three central arguments or observations in a well-crafted opening paragraph). I agree with writer Samuel Hynes that "the less obtrusive the story-teller is, the better for the story, and . . . when an assertive narrating personality shoulders his [or her] way between the reader and the subject, biography [and history] suffer. . . ."

6. Inclusion of frequent chronological references and their placement at the beginnings of sentences, paragraphs, phrases, and so forth contributes significantly to more accessible and dynamic prose.

7. On a related point, an author must be careful in selecting the time boundaries for her paper but once having established them she must not extend them in the text. Authors should observe this rule on the level of the paragraph as well. For example: If the title of your paper is something like "Gainesville Workers Organize, 1917-19," it is not appropriate to mention in the text any event or development that occurred after 1919, except possibly in an introductory paragraph. If the writer finds herself "stretching" the chronological boundaries of the paper to make points that seem important but falling beyond the original time limits established, she needs to adjust the paper's explicit focus and change the title . Thus, for example, "Gainesville Workers Organize, 1917-1919" might be retitled: "The Impact of World War I and the Development of the Labor Movement in Gainesville, Florida, 1917-1941."

8. It is easy to fall into stuffy, pompous, trite rhetorical patterns. Double negatives, for example, often only lend inflated importance to commonplace observations. The gratuitous imputation of erroneous views to the reader is another bad habit (as in: "It would be unfair to conclude that Nixon was a homosexual. . ."; or "It would be a gross overstatement to say that the South won the Civil War. . . ." In both cases, the reader is being warned against making an error that the author is actually suggesting).

9. Don't use lengthy block quotes. Always paraphrase and integrate into your own prose. Confine quoted words to short, distinctive selections, subordinating quoted material to your own purposes and your own language. Of course, writers must be absolutely scrupulous in making proper attribution in quoting sources.

10. There is much dismissive talk these days about so-called "political correctness." It is important for serious people to weigh carefully their language when referring to ethnicity, race, gender, and other politically charged subjects. Many complaints about the need to be "politically correct" reflect a desire on the part of politically or culturally dominant groups or interests to have license in the language they use to characterize or refer to minority, subordinated, or vulnerable groups. Language is a powerful tool. Use it judiciously, carefully, and with due respect for your fellow human beings.

Citation

In both the take-home exam and the term project, it is not necessary to render elaborate citations, since both papers rest on a limited number of sources. In the take-home, provide full citations to the outside sources consulted at the end of the paper. In the body of the paper, refer informally or parenthetically to the authors quoted or referred to. For example, you might say "According to Bruce Laurie, . . . ." The reader (me) will know that you are referring to Laurie's book Artisans into Workers so there is no need for a complete citation. Similarly, so long as there is a full citation at the end of the exam or paper to the outside sources consulted, this same informal method can be used for them as well.

Common errors and bad habits

1. Run-on sentences. When in doubt, start a new sentence.

2. Misplaced modifiers. ("Jumping out of bed, my shoulder hurt"; "Based on this evidence, Prof. Jones argues. . . ").

3. Quotations and punctuation marks. Remember these lifetime rules: In American English--

Commas and periods always go inside quotation marks
Colons and semi-colons always go outside quotation marks

Question marks and exclamation points (which latter you have no need for in this paper) depend on the context.

4. Distinguish between possessives, which take the apostrophe, and plurals, which don't. There are specific rules for plural possessives (e.g., for nouns ending in s, add apostrophe s to make the possessive; but for pluralized nouns otherwise not ending in s, just add the apostrophe).

Examples: Margaritas are made with tequila (correct). Margaritas' [or Margarita's] are made with lime juice (incorrect). The Margaritas' intoxicatory properties turned me into a zombie (correct).

5. Watch out for its and it's. Its is the possessive, as in "I liked the house because of its roominess." It's is the contraction for it is, as in "It's going to rain today." Ronald Reagan never could get this straight and look at what happened to him.

6. Adjectives and adverbs--get rid of as many as possible. In general, the higher the proportion of verbs in your writing, the more vigorous and effective it will be. Especially, strike the words "very" and "interesting" from your written vocabulary.

7. Comparisons and parallels. Make sure that when you make or draw them, the terms are consistent with each other. ("In regard to onions, Harding's smelled stronger than Coolidge"-should be: stronger than "those of Coolidge" or "Coolidge's.")

8. Be a "which" hunter, substituting "that" wherever possible.

9. When dealing with human beings, "who" is the correct pronoun; "that" is never acceptable (as in: I met a man who [not that] once groomed John L. Lewis's eyebrows).

10. In quotations, always make clear the identity of the person whom you quote. Every quote needs a "signature phrase," indicating the identity and/or standing of the person being quoted.

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Rules for take-home exams

Rules for take-home exams

1. In grading these papers, I give great weight to the first paragraph. In any essay, the first paragraph is critical. It must contain your most significant conclusions about the subject under discussion. It should not take more than half a page but should include sufficient specific references–particularly clear chronological references–to enable the reader to use it as a precise road map through your essay. It is likely that you will re-write the first paragraph after finishing the main body of the essay because it is often the case that a writer gains a full sense of her or his argument only after working through the issues.

2. Double space and staple the sheets together.

3. Answers must not exceed 1500 words (the equivalent of 6 typed, double-spaced pages).

4. Respond to the question in your own words. Confine quoted material, which must be informally cited by author, to no more than 10% of your wordage. Draw on class presentations, material on the website, and required reading for illustration and support of your judgments. Remember that the website (click on Sessions) contains lecture outlines, class commentaries, and other relevant information. The link to Supplementary Material may also be useful.

5. Be precise in references to people, organizations, legislative acts, court decisions, and so forth. Make sure the essay contains frequent references to chronology and that it develops in a clear chronological fashion.

6. In writing your essay, make every effort to deal with the required readings. In particular, look for every opportunity to show that you have read and understood the coursepack material relevant to an answer to the question on which you are writing. Refer specifically to the books and articles on which you draw, whether you quote them directly or merely refer to them. Always make the identify of the author clear. (“As Woodly Darrow argues . . .”; or, “Contrary to the view of Frieda Burpp. . .”).

7. In addition to the required class reading, find and use one additional journal article relevant to the subject of your essay. Use the bibliographies in Laurie and Zieger & Gall and the citations in the footnotes to the articles in the coursepack for suggestions. Articles in relevant scholarly journals most appropriate for this phase of the final exam can best be accessed through JSTOR from the UF Library home page. Incorporate explicit references to this source in your paper. I’ll be happy to consult about your source, either in person or via e-mail.

8. Consult this link to Zieger's Writing Rules for more detailed advice about writing and mechanics.

9. Questions, suggestions, advice, encouragement? I'm your guy.

Grading weights

First paragraph. 15 pts.
Cogency of overall approach. 25 pts.
Factual accuracy and chronological development. 20 pts.
Use of required readings and student-selected source. 20 pts.
Quality of writing (organization, clarity, observance of writing rules that are posted on the term project link from the course homepage). 20 pts.

Take home exam due February 28, 2005

Below are four generalizations about American labor during the period ca. 1870-1930. Write an essay analyzing one of these statements. Follow the rules for take-home exams specified below and posted on the website.

1. Although the US working class was riven by ethnic and racial tensions, the evidence is strong that by 1930 common class interests had come to prevail over divisive racial and ethnic differences.

2. The US labor movement was nativistic, conservative, apolitical, and procapitalist.

3. Although there was much labor unrest during this period, American workers exhibited a high degree of positive support for the US political and economic system.

4. Although the mainstream labor movement largely ignored female workers, gender considerations are crucial for the understanding of the character and development of the US working class during this period.

Respond to the question in your own words. Confine quoted material, which must be informally cited by author, to no more than 10% of your wordage. Draw on class presentations, material on the website, and required reading for illustration and support of your judgments. Remember that the website (click on sessions) contains lecture outlines, class commentaries, and other relevant information.

*****

Remember that it is critical that there be a substantive, precise statement of your central argument in the first paragraph. This paragraph should be about a half page long and should contain enough specificity to provide a clear road map to the points you will be developing in the main body of the essay.

Be precise in references to people, organizations, legislative acts, court decisions, and so forth. Make sure the essay contains frequent references to chronology and that it develops in a clear chronological fashion.

In writing your essay, make every effort to deal with the required readings. In particular, look for every opportunity to show that you have read and understood the coursepack material relevant to an answer to the question. Refer specifically to the books and articles upon which you draw, whether you quote them or merely refer to them. Always make the identity of the author clear. ("As Woodly Darrow argues. . ."; or, "Contrary to the view of Freida Burpp. . .").

In addition to the required class reading, find and use one additional journal article relevant to the subject of your essay. Use the bibliographies in Laurie and Zieger and Gall and the citations in the footnotes to the articles in the coursepack for suggestions. Probably the best way to find an article that will be helpful in developing your answer is through JSTOR, accessed through the UF Library home page. Incorporate explicit references to this source in your paper. I'll be happy to consult about your source, either in person or via e-mail.

Grading weights

First paragraph. 15 pts.

Cogency of overall approach. 25 pts.

Factual accuracy and chronological development. 20 pts.

Use of required readings and student-selected source: 20 pts.

Quality of writing (organization, clarity, observance of writing rules). 20 pts.

This link takes you to recommendations about writing. I take this aspect of your work in the course very seriously. Questions for take-home exams will be distributed on the dates indicated in the syllabus. I'll also post them on the course website. Students are expected to choose one question on which to write and to produce a well-crafted essay that responds to the question thoughtfully.

*****
Term project

Your term project is divided into three parts and revolves around the theme of work in modern US history.

Parts 1 and 2. Students are to identify two occupations*, one for the period c. 1870-1920, the other for the period c. 1920-1970, to investigate and to write short papers on. The first of these papers is due February 6; the second, March 31. Each paper must show familiarity with one significant scholarly source and one primary source**, as well as make use of relevant material in the course's required reading. These papers are to be about 1000 words in length (i.e., 4 type written, double-spaced pages). They should broadly reflect on the occupation the student has chosen to investigate, commenting, for example, on the character of the work, its role in the economy, the special features or problems associated with the occupation, the racial, ethnic, and/or gender dimensions of the occupation. In particular, students should seek to convey something about the lived experience of the men and/or women who plied the particular trade being examined.

Part 3.

Revised format for final part of term project.

Why have these workers come to the US at this particular time?

What sorts of work do they typically perform?

How important are they in the US economy?

Has their presence been associated with any problems of social conflict, cultural antagonism, and/or intra-class tension (i.e., tension within the US working class)?

Do they complement or compete with native American workers?

Do their presence and their circumstances have any implications for the labor movement?

How does the recent influx of immigrants and temporary workers from diverse areas compare and contrast with those of earlier periods in US labor history (i.e., early 20^th century; the Great Migration of African Americans)?

Use Fink's account of the Maya in North Carolina for purposes of comparison and contrast.

This paper should be about 1250 (i.e., 6 typed, double-spaced pages) words in length.

Collectively, the term project counts for 30% of the class grade-half for the first two shorter papers, half for the final, longer paper.

I expect to be closely involved in students' choice of subjects and readings. Students will be asked to indicate their choice of occupation to study and to register their readings with me according to a schedule I'll distribute separately. I place a great deal of emphasis on writing in grading these papers and expect students to be thoroughly familiar with these linked writing rules.

*By occupation I mean, for the purposes of this assignment, wage-earning employment of a non-professional and non-supervisory or non-managerial character.

**Scholarly source: An authoritative account of the industry, occupation, and/or workers' lives based on through examination of relevant sources. The book or journal article chosen should be documented (i.e., have footnotes or endnotes; and, in the case of books, a bibliography) and should have been issued by a recognized publisher (likely a university press) or academic journal. Primary source: A discussion or investigation of the occupation, and/or of the lives of the men and/or women who plied it, produced during the period under examination (i.e., 1870-1920; 1920-1970; since 1970). Examples would be: magazine articles; newspaper reports; oral history interviews with workers; testimony from court cases, legislative investigations, or similar public material; published memoirs or autobiographies of workers.

*****

How to write

4. Avoid all first-person or surrogate references. By "surrogate" I mean such terms as one, we, the current writer.

6. Inclusion of frequent chronological references and their placement at the beginnings of sentences, paragraphs, phrases, and so forth contributes significantly to more accessible and dynamic prose.

Citation

Common errors and bad habits

1. Run-on sentences. When in doubt, start a new sentence.

2. Misplaced modifiers. ("Jumping out of bed, my shoulder hurt"; "Based on this evidence, Prof. Jones argues. . . ").

3. Quotations and punctuation marks. Remember these lifetime rules: In American English--

Commas and periods always go inside quotation marks
Colons and semi-colons always go outside quotation marks

Question marks and exclamation points (which latter you have no need for in this paper) depend on the context.

Examples: Margaritas are made with tequila (correct). Margaritas' [or Margarita's] are made with lime juice (incorrect). The Margaritas' intoxicatory properties turned me into a zombie (correct).

8. Be a "which" hunter, substituting "that" wherever possible.

9. When dealing with human beings, "who" is the correct pronoun; "that" is never acceptable (as in: I met a man who [not that] once groomed John L. Lewis's eyebrows).

10. In quotations, always make clear the identity of the person whom you quote. Every quote needs a "signature phrase," indicating the identity and/or standing of the person being quoted.

*****
Rules for take-home exams

Rules for take-home exams

2. Double space and staple the sheets together.

3. Answers must not exceed 1500 words (the equivalent of 6 typed, double-spaced pages).

8. Consult this link to Zieger's Writing Rules for more detailed advice about writing and mechanics.

9. Questions, suggestions, advice, encouragement? I'm your guy.

Grading weights

*****
SOCIALISM, RADICALISM, FASCISM

Copyright Robert H. Zieger

January 24, 2003

Reading for class session of February 4, 2004

1. The term "The Left" dates back to the French Revolution when in the constituent assembly, the more extreme and militant delegates occupied seats to the left of the front of the hall from the viewpoint of someone facing the delegates. In more modern parlance, it refers to those who perceive some urgent need for democratic and egalitarian change in existing circumstances and who believe that collective action is necessary to achieve it. Leftists can be defined in part by what they oppose, notably militarism, racism, elitism, authoritarianism. But within the broad tent occupied by people of The Left, there are many diverse tendencies, movements, perspectives, and organizations. Some of the fiercest political battles of the 20^th century were among people who saw themselves as being part of The Left but who disagreed sharply-even at times, violently-with others who also claimed that rubric. One broad division is between those who believe that capitalism must be supplanted by common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, on the one hand, and those who believe that meaningful democratic and egalitarian reform can take place within capitalist structures.

2. Marxism. Karl Marx (1819-1883) was the author of Capital, the classic and basic text of modern socialism. He was also a shrewd and incisive journalist and commentator, as well as a political activist. Along with his collaborator and financial angel, Frederich Engels, Marx saw capitalism as both a liberating and an exploitative force. Its dynamism destroyed all the old traditions and hierarchies, freeing people from the dead hand of the past. However, its success depended on the exploitation of labor and the appropriation of wealth by an increasingly small and powerful class of owners of the means of production (and their political henchmen). Capitalism carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction because in exploiting labor, it created an ever larger and more alienated class of workers whose increasingly desperate conditions and outrage at their exploitation would eventually lead to revolutionary action. Eventually, as the social crisis created by capitalism deepened, the expropriators (i.e., capitalists) would be expropriated (i.e., workers would destroy the system and gain control of the means of production themselves).

Marxism was (and is) a broad, generic intellectual and political tendency. Some Marxists see Marx's writings as virtually sacred and probe them endlessly for instructions on how to act. More sophisticated Marxists, however, take his basic insights as to the material basis of all political and social life and seek to apply them in a flexible way. Agreeing with Marx's basic analysis, contemporary socialists believe that the apocalyptical vision of a labor-capital Armageddon is no longer relevant. Others stress the democratic thrust of Marxism, the call for empowering the majority and resisting the claims of the wealthy. Still others stress Marx's early writings, in which he wrote lyrically about the need to reclaim human agency in the face of relentless division of labor and alienation of workers from the tools of production. There are Christian Marxists, Marxist humanists, neo-Marxists, even pro-market Marxists. For my money, the best single book on Marxism, one that has insightful things to say about its application to conditions in the US, is Michael Harrington, Socialism (1972).

3. Socialism. Socialism is the generic term applied to those on the Left who believed (and believe) that a truly just and humane society cannot be achieved so long as the means of production, distribution, and exchange remain in private hands and who believe that the state must play a crucial role in the transition to a new form of social organization. Traditionally, socialism has been associated with government ownership and operation of economic activities, although many socialists believe(d) that only the "commanding heights"-the large, concentrated, critical industries and utilities such as railroads, steel, banking-need be publicly owned. There are and have been many varieties of socialism but in the absence of explicit qualifying remarks, for the purposes of this class when reference is made to "socialism," it means the ideas and programs and movements associated with the main socialist political parties and labor organizations in the western countries (i.e., industrialized regions, mainly Western Europe, the British Commonwealth, the US) in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. These socialist movements were strongly critical of the inequities of capitalism, strongly supportive of organized labor, and quite confident that socialism represented the wave of the future. In Europe, socialist organizations were at the forefront of those seeking to expand the suffrage and to bring working people into the political community. In more recent decades, socialists have lost much of their previous confidence but they continue to be critical of market capitalism, which they believe breeds inequality, waste, political corruption, and the disempowerment of ordinary people.

4. Social Democracy. In the heyday of socialism (ca. 1880-1950), many socialists, while remaining critical of capitalism, came to believe that Marx's basic analysis needed revision in light of more recent developments. Many of those active in the German Social Democratic Party (which was the largest political party in Germany for much of this period) and the British Labour Party (which after 1919 constituted the main opposition party in Britain and which came to power in 1945) came to regard the reform and regulation of capitalism as the only realistic goal. In Marx's day, so raw and naked was the exploitative thrust of capitalism it was reasonable to regard its overthrow as possible and necessary. But now, Social Democrats (most of whom remained active in socialist parties and organizations) argued, we have shown that it is possible to control capitalism through public regulation and legislation to protect workers from its excesses by encouraging trade unionism and regulating working conditions, as well as by state provision of medical, old age, and unemployment benefits. Social Democrats continued to be sharp critics of capitalism and often continued to believe that in the very long run capitalism would have to be supplanted but in practical political affairs they reached out to non-socialist progressives and liberals, cut back on the revolutionary rhetoric, and operated within the political system to improve the social welfare, educational, and regulatory functions of government. In 1959, the German Social Democratic Party formally abandoned explicitly revolutionary intent, while in 1995 the British Labour Party rescinded Clause Four of its 1919 constitution that had called for full public ownership of the means of production and distribution. In the US, the Socialist Party of America reached a peak in the WWI era, with its charismatic early leader Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) capturing 900,000 votes in the 1912 presidential election and many local officials and two congressmen gaining election on the Socialist ticket. Since the 1920s, however, socialism has been only a marginal element in US political life and leading American socialists such as Norman Thomas (1884-1968) and Michael Harrington (1929-1989) have functioned more as social democratic critics and champions of social justice than leaders of a vanguard party.

5. Anarchism. The anarchist criticism of capitalism is both similar to and very different from that of the Marxist. "Man was born free," declared Rousseau in the 18^th century, "but is everywhere in chains." In common with Marxists, anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin denounced the exploitation inherent in capitalism. But whereas Marx and later socialists saw as the goal of revolutionary activity the gaining of state power, anarchists warned that any government, no matter how formally democratic, would inevitably degenerate into tyranny. This would especially be true of a socialist government that combined political and economic functions. Instead of gaining control of government, whether by revolutionary or legal means, anarchists believed, it was necessary for workers and citizens to gain democratic control of their workplaces and neighborhoods. While socialists envisaged a kind of superstate, coordinating everything from the top, anarchists believed in grass roots activism, without formal structures of governmental authority being necessary. Only through local activism and the insistence on grass roots democratic decision-making could people be truly free.

Some anarchists turned to violence, believing that "propaganda by the deed" could shatter the existing order and provide a liminal moment in which old structures of capitalist economics and bureaucratic government might be destroyed, providing room for the sprouting of innumerable popular organizations in workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. Some anarchists preached sabotage and even assassination and indeed during this period there were many episodes of political murder (e.g., the killing of President William McKinley in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, a self-styled anarchist) and bombings perpetrated by violent anarchist groups in the US, Russia, and Western Europe. Most anarchists, however, rejected violence. Over the years, the repression and victimization of anarchists (and other radicals) by public authorities and private vigilantes in the West far exceeded the violence perpetrated by radicals.

6. Syndicalism. Syndicalism is the belief-actually, an extension and application of anarchist principles-in workers' control. The workplace, syndicalists such as Georges Sorel held, is the nodal point of modern civilization. Sorel spoke of the "myth of the general strike," meaning by the word "myth" not a falsehood but an organizing and sustaining principle or goal. Workers have the inherent power to gain control of the means of production and, through the exercise of this power, the central economic and political structures in society. Syndicalists urged that exploited workers ignore political action, which they felt was a distraction and a blind alley, and that they exert their decisive power at the point of production. Fight "on the job, where you're robbed," in the words of an American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) slogan. Worker solidarity across lines of skill, gender, nationality, race, and ethnicity would enable workers to bring down the existing order and "create a new world from the ashes of the old." The militant syndicalism of the IWW, implying as it did the ignoring of existing structures of power and the building of an alternative social order from the workplace outward, is sometimes termed anarcho-syndicalism.

7. Leninism. Leninism, Bolshevism, or Soviet Communism are roughly synonymous terms. Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the main Russian socialist party and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and head of the new Soviet state. Two main ideas characterize Leninism: 1) rather than waiting for the masses of people to develop a revolutionary consciousness, a small cadre of dedicated revolutionaries must foment revolution and control its processes, bringing the masses along through their example and through the instruments of state power developed in the Bolshevik seizure of power; 2) the only reason that capitalism in the industrialized West has not followed the trajectory outlined by Marx is because of western states' imperial expansion and domination of what later would be called "the Third World." In effect, Lenin argued, western capitalist regimes had been able to buy off their working classes through economic exploitation of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the wealth of which provided a sufficient surplus for capitalists and their political henchmen to raise living standards at home and thus deflect potentially revolutionary activism. While the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union initially derived from the common critique of capitalism shared by all on the Left, it soon developed a dynamic and a character of its own. Particularly after Lenin's death in 1924 and the emergence of Josef Stalin (1879-1953) as the Soviet leader, the Russian Communist regime deepened the authoritarianism toward which Leninist doctrine seemed in any event to tend. The term "Stalinism" has come to indicate a particularly brutal authoritarianism. During the 1930s and World War II, many western liberals and radicals chose to ignore the more sinister features of Soviet Communism under Stalin in light of the Great Depression that afflicted the West and the Russian people's heroic struggle against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Others in labor, socialist, and liberal movements, however, viewed Stalinism as the perversion of socialism and opposed it root and branch even during this period.

A major fault line among people on the Left even today runs between those who see the crimes of Stalinism has having perverted and betrayed the original, hopeful promise of the Bolshevik Revolution, and those who see the evils of Stalinism (and Maoism in China) as being traceable directly to the Bolsheviks' contempt for "mere" democracy and due process. Still another dimension of the dramatic controversies that swirled about the Russian Revolution and that made the "short" twentieth century (1914-1989) so ideologically and politically turbulent is provided by Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), a brilliant co-revolutionary, founder of the Red Army, and, many thought, heir apparent to Lenin. First exiled and then murdered in 1940 by a Stalinist agent, Trotsky remains for some the embodiment of the tragic failure of the Russian Revolution, while to others he remains squarely-if with greater charisma and intellectual brilliance-firmly within the authoritarian and murderous traditions of Bolshevism and Soviet Communism.

8. Socialism vs. Fascism. Students often profess to be confused about the differences between socialism and fascism. (Recall that by "socialism," I refer here to the ideas, policies, programs, and activities of the socialist and social democratic parties and movements of the West during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries [see No. 3, above]). Socialism and fascism are antithetical concepts. About their only point of agreement is that government must be used as a positive instrument of social and economic development. There are grounds for confusion, though. For example, Hitler's Nazi movement in 1920s and 1930s Germany adopted the name "National Socialist Party," and there are some conservative critics-historian John Lukacs is a good example-who believe that the kinds of enhanced government power advocated by socialists, as well as their scapegoating of certain categories of people-capitalists; the bourgeoisie; non-socialist politicians-is broadly equivalent to the authoritarianism and scapegoating central to fascism. But, unlike fascists or "national socialists" such as the Nazis, western socialists have never celebrated authoritarian rule, nor have they sought the physical liquidation of the people whom they identify as class enemies.

Here are some points to keep in mind:

Socialists are democrats. Socialists, especially in Europe, fought for the expansion of the suffrage and the establishment and defense of what in America we call First Amendment freedoms. Fascists are authoritarians who regard democratic politics as a sham and constitutional freedoms as irrelevant, to be valued only insofar as they can be exploited to advance the fascist agenda.

Socialists are anti-militarists while fascist movements typically extol and glorify military and martial values. Socialists are not necessarily pacifists, and indeed many early socialists believed that only through armed struggle on the part of the masses could a just society be created. But socialists as socialists never privileged military action or celebrated the kinds of discipline and authority that militarism entails.

Socialists reject all forms of racism, while fascism is usually linked to violent victimization of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the name of some mythical racial ideal. Historically, it is true that socialists in the past sometimes shared in the prejudiced racial and ethnic attitudes prevailing at the time but the socialist movement has never embraced racism as a positive value or actively promoted the victimization of "undesirable" people.

Socialists favor a strong and autonomous labor movement and strong non-governmental civic institutions. Fascists regard the labor movement as one of their prime enemies and seek to create party- or regime-dominated pseudo-organizations of workers (and other groups) for the purpose of mobilizing uncritical support for the party or regime.

****
Relevant websites:

Socialist Party of the United States: http://sp-usa.org/

Democratic Socialists of America: http://www.dsausa.org/

Communist Party website: http://www.cpusa.org/

Socialist Workers Party (Trotskyist) websites:

http://www.swp.org.uk/ (Great Britain)

http://www.themilitant.com/ (SWP-US newspaper)
****
Further thouthts on Socialism, Communism, etc.
Fall 2004
The words "socialism" and "communism" are generic, rather than precise, terms. Ideologists and political activists have used them for a variety of purposes in a variety of contexts. In one way or another, much of the political language of western societies-Western Europe, North America, and the "white" components of the British Empire-invoked these terms (especially "socialism") during the period from about 1840 to about 1980.

In our usual parlance, despite the basic ambiguity of these words, the word "communist" (or "Communist") has been associated with the political organizations that gained state power in Russia, China, Cuba, much of Eastern Europe, Vietnam, Cambodia, and North Korea in the period 1917-1960. While the leaders and spokesmen for these countries invariably used the term "socialist" to describe and characterize these societies (e.g., the acronym USSR stands for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), many non-Communist socialists outside the Communist bloc rejected both Communism ("real existing Communism," i.e., communism as actually practiced in these countries) and the legitimacy of the use of the term "socialist" to characterize these regimes, which they regarded as repressive, authoritarian, and dehumanizing.

Throughout western Europe and the "white" British Commonwealth (as parts of the Empire became designated after World War I), as well as in the US, relatively large Socialist parties played significant electoral roles through much of the 20^th century. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD); in Britain, the Labour Party; in Canada the Canadian Commonwealth Federation (later, and currently, the New Democratic Party); in the US, the Socialist Party of America. While some members of these organizations were attracted to the Communism that emerged in the USSR after 1917 (and/or in China after 1949, Vietnam after 1954, Cuba after 1961, etc.), the central tendency of most western socialists was to reject Communism on the grounds that rather than fulfilling the socialist goal of brotherhood and democracy, the Soviet Union, Mao's China, Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, Castro's Cuba, etc. had substituted authoritarian rule for democracy. Indeed, most western socialist parties eventually abandoned the goal of the eradication of capitalism and embraced what was called a "mixed economy," wherein democratically elected governments, reinforced by strong labor and civic organizations, acted to ameliorate the inequalities inherent in capitalism and to curb the power of large concentrations of economic and financial power while preserving private property and capitalist forms of business ownership.

Many conservatives believe that this re-formulated socialist project remains dangerous and ultimately unworkable. Increased governmental regulation, they believe, leads inevitably to inefficiency, abuse of authority, and regimentation. While perhaps acknowledging that socialists may be sincere in their rejection of communism, many conservatives believe that even the moderate social democracy advanced by Britain's Labour Party and its counterparts in France, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere leads down, in the words of conservative ideologist Fredrich Hayek, "the road to serfdom."

Social democrats respond that it is late capitalism, with its enormous inequalities, its exploitation of labor, and its concentrations of financial power that jeopardize democratic institutions. Only through popular action using government as an instrument of social justice can capitalism be made to serve the public interest. Without a significant degree of democratic regulation of otherwise-irresponsible private accumulations of wealth, the rich will just get richer, the poor poorer, and the physical environment will continue to deteriorate.

****

On History and Hyperbole

(Still further thoughts)

In serious political discourse, it is important to use ideological terminology carefully and precisely. While in barroom or dormitory arguments short-hand labels are harmless enough, in more formal or public settings, it is wise to weigh one's words thoughtfully and to strive for fairness and exactitude. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be passionate, engaged, and even partisan. But even in the most heated public political or ideological brawl, we do better when we strive for accuracy and fairness. It is the mark of our best and most astute political commentators, all along the political spectrum, that they represent their opponents' views rigorously and precisely.

There is a tendency, for example, among those on the political left to use inflammatory sobriquets with which to characterize their conservative opponents. "As a matter of strict fact," I recall a leftist friend of mine in the early 1960s declaiming, "Richard Nixon is a fascist." As a virtually life-long Nixon hater, I bow to no one in my disdain for our 35^th president. In my view, he was a liar, a demagogue, and a perverter of the democratic process. But he was, as a matter of strict fact, no more a "fascist" than my Aunt Tillie.

As a kind of conscious, almost playful hyperbole among like-minded people in private settings, such extreme language probably does no harm. But in any sort of serious public setting-a political debate, a classroom, an informed discussion among people of diverse views-this sort of over-the-top language would rightly be regarded as unfair and disreputable and would, again rightly, identify the speaker as reckless, irresponsible, and unserious. Labels such as "fascist," "communist," "militarist," "racist," and, yes, "socialist" carry a lot of emotional and political freight and need to be used judiciously and cautiously.

Which brings us to the question of whether there is "any socialism" in today's America. Of course, there are explicitly socialist groups whose agendas and positions can easily be found via the internet. I've noted the websites of the two most active and visible of such groups above. Things get more problematic, however, when the term "socialism" or "socialist" is used by opponents to describe or characterize the views or policies of their political adversaries within the context of the prevailing two-party system. No serious socialist-a member, say of the Socialist Party of the United States or the Democratic Socialists of America-would credit the Democratic Party or any leading Democratic politician or spokesman with being a fellow socialist. As described above, a socialist, if she believes in anything, believes at some level in public, or at least common, ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. No figure in the Democratic party has ever advanced such an agenda and so to characterized the Democratic party as "socialist" insults both Democrats and real socialists, who regard the mildly liberal programs and policies outlined, in, say, the Democratic party's 2004 platform as efforts to strengthen capitalism and to bolster so-called "free enterprise," not as steps in the direction of establishing a "cooperative commonwealth."

There are perhaps two possible ways in which it might in theory be considered legitimate to use the "socialist" label with reference to liberal groups or to the Democratic party. It might be argued that certain influential Democrats or liberals are trying to mislead the public. They secretly favor public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange but they know that any explicit effort to enact such a program would meet with public hostility. Hence, they mask their intentions, claiming that they are merely well-intentioned reformers. Once elected, however, they attempt to enact their socialist agenda. Folks who believe that secret socialists are at work within the Democratic party are folks who tend to see any expansion of governmental activity-environmental regulation, regulation of workplace health and safety, publically financed efforts to provide affordable healthcare-as evidence of what we might call "Crypto-Socialism." However, it would be hard to find any evidence, either in public or private utterances, on the part of any Democrat that she or he secretly favored the promulgation of a socialist agenda, however much she or he might favor specific policies that involved the expansion of governmental involvement in the economy.

Perhaps more seriously, it might be argued that while liberals and Democrats may not be aware of it, certain policies or programs that they support-health care reform and regulation of corporate activities, for example-in some unintended way move the country in the direction of socialism (i.e., toward public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange). You can't have the kind of national health care system urged by certain Democrats, the argument goes, without having, finally, to have the federal government take over control of all medical facilities and to make medical practitioners employees of the government, even though no real existing Democrat would be caught dead advocating such a development. Regulatory rules and requirements, it is sometimes argued, will inevitably have the long-range effect of stifling enterprise, impoverishing business people, and requiring that the federal government take over key economic functions. Thus, without anyone explicitly intending it, critics of interventionist policies warn, we will wake up one day to find the government owning and operating "the means of production, distribution, and exchange." We might call this scenario "Unintended Socialism."

It seems to me that both of these scenarios are pretty far-fetched. It is true that the one formally socialist member of Congress, Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders, does usually vote with the Democrats with respect to the organization of the House. And that he often sides with them in floor votes on specific issues. But it seems on the face of it absurd to see the 211 Democratic House members as stealth socialists, secretly waltzing down the trail blazed by one lone representative from Vermont.

The argument that the liberal Democratic agenda invariably segues into socialism, whatever the acknowledged intentions of its supporters, seems to me equally insubstantial. Beginning with the New Deal of the 1930s, government has played a larger role in American life than was the case before. Yet proportionately, over the past thirty years, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, the number of federal employees has been in decline. Non-military government spending has been claiming a shrinking proportion of the federal budget and of the GNP. Unless one simply argues that any expansion of the federal government's role is by definition a step toward "socialism"-an argument from faith and from definition, not one from analysis and evidence-the US seems even further from socialism today than it did to Werner Sombart nearly a century ago. Indeed, then there was a growing Socialist party which was electing scores of local officials and exercising considerable influence within an expanding labor movement. But today, Sanders excepted, there are no elected socialist public officials. A declining labor movement has long since repudiated the thin strands of socialism that it once exhibited. Socialist organizations, though often containing articulate social critics, have few members and little public visibility.

I mention these points not in an effort to defend Democrats (though, yes, I am one) or to promote the party's positions. Public policy proposals advanced by Democrats in Congress, on the state and local levels, and in the recent presidential campaign are clearly subject to close public scrutiny. The view that this or that policy initiative will lead to greater red tape or unnecessary governmental intrusion is a legitimate one that needs to be argued on the facts and merits, issue by issue. I'm sure that we can rely on Republicans and non-party conservatives to perform this service, just as Democrats and liberals will criticize the record of President Bush and the positions that he has taken. But none of this has anything to do with "socialism" unless by "socialism" one simply means "policies and programs that I don't like."

*****
Sessions link.

Study questions for class sessions of January 7 and 12:

January 7, 2005

Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers, pp. 113-42

This chapter covers:

1. The scope of economic activity
2. Changes in the character and context of work

3. The size and composition of working class

4. Living standards of workers)

5. Hegemonic (i.e., prevailing) ideas about labor and political economy

6. Public policies, programs, and practices related to labor (i.e., legislation, other governmental actions, court decisions)

7. Workers' responses to changing economic and social conditions.

*****
January 12, 2005; reading: Laurie, pp. 141-75
Quotes from Laurie:

The Knights of Labor looked forward as well as backward

Knighthood may be seen as a middle ground between the individualistic libertarianism of bourgeois America and the collectivism of working-class socialists

[In America] Socialism . . . was so weak because radicalism was so strong. . . . Radicalism became the touchstone of Knighthood's movement culture.

(Laurie is using the word "radicalism" in a special context-see pp. 9-13 for his usage).

The extraordinary growth of 1885-86 . . . breached the barricades of race and gender.

The Great Upheaval set free the contradictory forces of 'solidarity and fragmentation. . . .'

May 1, 1886: 'it was the workingman's hour.'

What is to be said about the Knights and:

Employers

The trade unions

Legislation and politics

Zieger says this: The KOL was less a coherent and agenda-driven labor organization than the repository of the hopes, aspirations, and grievances of large numbers of American workers in the 1880s. The rapid pace and uneven performance of industrial capitalism created a widely shared sense of grievance and resentment among thousands of workers. The high-handed and arbitrary ways in which employers increasingly tried to dilute long-standing work practices and to step up the pace of work triggered unrest. During this deflationary period, pressure for wage reductions was constant. And underlying discontent with specific workplace issues lay smouldering hostility toward the way in which the emerging industrial regime, with its increasingly hierarchical methods of management and its growing disparities of wealth and poverty, seemed to vitiate America's promise of justice and equality.
The Knights of Labor, sometimes fortuitously, tapped into this volatile mixture of grievances, resentments, and mistrust. Though its leadership might oppose strikes as a method of protest, thousands of men and women, viewing the KOL as a vehicle for their protest, did not hesitate to violate this theoretical injunction. The Knights's vision of an egalitarian producer republic that could somehow redirect the headlong rush to corporate capitalism, with all its pathologies and advantages, looked backward to an allegedly simpler and more humane time. At the same time, in its vision of uniting all workers regardless of craft or gender or race and of adapting republican institutions and civic activism to new conditions the KOL provided a vision of equality and social justice that remains vital today. A question for historians is whether the KOL and related late 19^th century movements represented a viable, but ultimately rejected, alternative to the profit-maximizing capitalism that triumphed; or an archaic effort to stop the clock.

*****
Quiz. January 14, 2005. Reading: Daniel Letwin, "Interracial Unionism, Gender, and 'Social Equality' in the Alabama Coalfields, 1878-1908," Journal of Southern History 61: 3 (Aug. 1995): 519-554

1. According to Letwin, interracial unionism was commonplace in the late 19^th century American South.

2. The fact that the Alabama mine operators had employed large numbers of African Americans from the beginning of their operations encouraged white miners to collaborate with their black co-workers rather than attempt to bar them from employment in the mines.

3. According to Letwin, interracial unionism in Alabama did not mean racially egalitarian unionism.

4. Both the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers promoted what people in the 19^th century termed "social equality" between blacks and whites.

5. Recruitment of black strike breakers and employment of black convict laborers in the 1890s destroyed bi-racial unionism in the Alabama mines.

6. Black and white miners collaborated politically, as well as in the union, at least during the period that blacks still were able to vote in Alabama.

****

Here are some additional things to think about:

1. It's always important to take note of the sources on which papers in scholarly journals are based.

2. Review your understanding, as perhaps derived from earlier courses in US history, of the state of race relations in the US South in the decades following the Civil War.

3. What are Letwin's implicit assumptions about race? About organized labor?

4. What, if any, are the longer range implications of Letwin's account? Is the story he tells a quaint and curious tale of certain developments in a particular southern state in the late 19^th century? Or might what occurred in Alabama in this period resonate into the 20^th century?

****
January 19, 2005 Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 176-210

The Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor represent the two dominant trends in US labor organization over the period c. 1870-1955.

1. Dissident labor ideologies of the late 19^th century

A. Radicalism a la Laurie
B. Socialism

1. Marxian
2. Lassallean

3. Home-grown (e.g., Bellamy)

C. Anarchism
D. Syndicalism

2 Character and development of the AFL
A. The crafts and the masses
B. AFL structure and trajectory

C. Doctrines

1. "Pure and simple" unionism (business unionism)
2. Voluntarism (keeping the state out). In Europe, strong states, little overt repression; in the US, weak state, much repression.

3. Trade autonomy

4. "Prudential unionism"-dangers of mass activism, which would invite repression. Big challenge is to preserve the union.

D. Achievements, limitations, prospects, 1886-1900
Note here particularly AFL racial policies and attitudes re blacks, Asians; women workers; immigrant and unskilled workers

1. It looks like Ichioka, "Asian Immigrant Coal Miners. . . ." (coursepack), which is scheduled for next Monday, won't be here. That day I'll lecture about Asian workers in this period and will post material on the website.

2. As to the first stage of the project, note the revised version of the on-line description, which specifies more exactly how to go about it. Questions?

3. As to today, first I'd like to review the quiz on Letwin, which we didn't get to on Friday.

4. Finally, and we can fold this into Friday's class, let's look at Laurie, 176-210, which covers, among other things, late 19^th century currents of radicalism (in both senses); the establishment and character of the AFL; and the course and implications of some of the most significant labor disturbances of the late 19^th century, notably Homestead and Pullman.

A. Radicalism (Not in the original Laurie sense of the term). What's your impression? Lasalle, Marx, anarchism, and so forth. Generalization: There was a lively and influential radical presence in and around the labor movement, particularly in certain urban areas and particularly among certain categories of immigrant workers.
B. The AFL. Terms such as "voluntarism"; "pure and simple" unionism; "craft" unionism; "prudential unionism"; "trade autonomy." AFL and gender; race. Achievements and limitations of AFL in this period.

C. What conclusions should we draw from these two massive labor upheavals? What conclusions did Sam Gompers draw?

***
This link is to a worthwhile recently published article dealing with the current problems of the US labor movement (inserted here for general interest--not a class assignment).

*****

January 24, 2005. The "Other" Americans: Chinese Workers, 1848-1924

I. The scope and character of Chinese migration

II. The work the Chinese did

A. Mining

R. Railroad building

C. Agriculture

D. Manufacturing

E. Domestic trades

III. Anti-Chinese sentiment and action

A. Chinese not eligible for naturalization (Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1870)

B. State-imposed (California) disabilities and city ordinances (special taxes; bans on landholding)

C. Violent expulsions and attacks

1. Many localized episodes

2. The 1880s-decade of violence

a. Eureka and Tacoma Expulsions

b. Rock Springs Massacre

D. Emergence of the Workingman's Party (California) and Dennis Kearny, late 1870s

IV. The move toward exclusion

A. Burlingame Treaty of 1868 actually encourages Chinese migration

B. State and local efforts to restrict migration unconstitutional

C. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

D. Geary Act and subsequent legislation, 1892 et seq.

E. Administration of anti-Chinese law

Note that enforcement was stepped up under Terence V. Powderly, former GMW of the KOL and now (1898-1902) US Commissioner of Immigration. Saw as his job the determination to "check the advancing hordes and whores who seek our shores in search of wealth and-if pressed-work." The Japanese, he said, wer "syphylis-tainted minions of the Mikado, [who, along with the Chinese, to wit]: the almond-eyed, pigeon toed, pig-tailed, hen-faced legions of the celestial empire might storm the citadel at San Francisco." Powderly added that "I am no bigot." Powderly's successor, Frank P. Sargent, also a union official, was even more rigorous.

The facility at Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay, became notorious as a place of incarceration and harassment, as immigration officials sought to exclude and Chinese migrants sought to outwit the system through disguises, forged documents, bribery, and other means.

V. Organized labor's role in anti-Chinese activity and in Exclusion.

With the Chinese, according to an AFL convention resolution in 1892, came "nothing but filth, vice and disease." In 1902, Gompers published a pamphlet whose title carried its message: "Meat vs. Rice-American Manhood vs. Asiatic Coolieism." Throughout the West, labor unionists in the mining towns and port cities were among the most vociferous opponents of Chinese migration and indeed in San Francisco and other places anti-Chinese sentiment served as a kind of glue to keep otherwise disputations unionists together.The case of the San Francisco building trades, which dominated political life in the California city around the turn of the century, is particularly instructive. Their leaders combined staunch union solidarity, a deep commitment to republican values, bitter hostility toward the economic elites who sought to cheapen labor, and harsh, even brutal, animosity toward the Chinese, whom they regarded as lackeys of the corporate bloodsuckers who were seeking to debase American workingmen.

Bibliography:

Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993)

Najia Aarim-Heriot, Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848-82 (2003)

Roger Daniels, Asian American: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (1988)

Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (2003)

Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California (1971)

Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1998)

****

January 26, 2005. Reading: Zieger and Gall, AWAU, pp. 1-18

Here are some key terms derived from this reading. Self-test: can you define, characterize, discuss most of them within the context of this reading?

Scientific management

Welfare capitalism

Five-dollar day

skill

peonage

at will employment

Triangle Shirtwaist fire

Workmen's compensation

New immigration

melting pot

"wages of whiteness"

****
January 28, 2005. Reading: Kenneth Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work, and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920," American Historical Review 99: 4 (Oct. 1994): 1074-1111 The first 5 pages of the article consists of a fairly detailed overview of the historical writing about the relationship between technology and the labor process. Lipartito particularly highlights the contributions of Harry Braverman and David Montgomery. He-Lipartito-however stresses the complexity of technological innovation and introduces the concept of what he calls "techno-labor" systems. In addition, the essay challenges the notion that technology is somehow an autonomous force that overrides cultural values, gender assumptions, and entrenched mindsets.

Beginning on page 1081, Lipartito introduces us to the particular world of the Bell (or American Telephone and Telegraph) Company and its switchboard operators. Here are some statements about the character of switchboard work and its labor force.

* Company officials early on determined that switchboard operating was women's work and that only a certain kind of woman was suitable for it.

Fortuitously (?), it happened that during this period (c.1890-1915) an unusually large number of these women were becoming available.

While some of Lipartito's descriptions of the pace and exertion required of switches are sobering, in general switching was considered good work for young women.

While productivity sagged and worker discontent mounted, AT&T resorted both to scientific management and welfare capitalism as a means of boosting job satisfaction and productivity.

The company eventually discovered that the very qualities that it sought to encourage among its workers-cooperation; group loyalty; educational attainment-could be turned against during times of labor unrest.

Events in the larger society-war; fear of governmental regulation; expanding opportunities, both occupational and recreational, for women-played a key role in AT&T's long-delayed decision to mechanize its switching operations.

Non-attendees: Here's the quiz that you missed. You'll be sorry.

January 28, 2005. Reading: Kenneth Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work, and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920," American Historical Review 99: 4 (Oct. 1994): 1074-1111

1. According to Lipartito, Bell/ATT: a) pioneered in the introduction of automatic switching technology; b) relied primarily on government research in developing new technologies; c) retained operator-centered switching practices long after new technologies became available; d) used its monopoly power to force smaller telephone companies to abandon automatic switching experiments.

2. Bell/ATT managers and engineers: a) soon abandoned the risky experiment of employing women as operators in favor of hiring young males for the job; b) believed that women's greater manual dexterity, patience, and gentility made them ideal operators; c) employed only married women for the demanding job of operator; d) found that a policy of rapid upward promotion of its female operators insured maximum effort and efficiency.

3. Which of the following factors played the greatest role in providing the company with operators during the period c. 1890-1914: a) immigration; b) expanding educational opportunities for women; c) the entrance of large numbers of married women into the labor force; d) chronic unemployment in trades such as female-dominated areas as textiles, garments, and domestic service.

4. According to Lipartito, Bell/ATT's cultivation of a cooperative female work culture sometimes backfired when: a) dissatisfied operators based labor activism on their work-site cooperative patterns; b) operators collaborated to sabotage new technological innovations; c) work-place friendships undermined efficiency; d) operators connived to cover up theft, absenteeism, and poor work habits of their colleagues.

5. In the end, Bell/ATT eventually adopted automatic switching because: a) of labor militancy; b) of a dwindling supply of women available for recruitment as operators; c) the vast expansion of demand for telephone services during the WWI era; d) it turned out that most subscribers actually preferred automatic dialing to operator-assisted connections.

****
January 31, 2005. Reading: Zieger & Gall, AWAU, 18-32

This is pretty straightforward stuff. Here are some terms and themes that may bear further discussion in class.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

company unions

employers' resistance to union organization

Ludlow strike

Goals and philosophy of the Progressiver Era AFL (cf. Laurie)

labor injunctions

industrial unionism

****

February 2, 2005

Study questions for Eric Arnesen, "'Like Banquo's Ghost, It Will Not Down': The Race Question and the American Railroad Brotherhoods, 1880-1920," AHR 99: 5 (Dec. 1994): 1601-33.

We quickly run into our old friend the "wages of whiteness" again.

What was distinctive about employment on the railroads in terms of prestige, compensation, and general reputation of this line of work. What was distinctive about the railroad unions-the Railroad Brotherhoods-that distinguished them from the unions in the American Federation of Labor?

How did the presence of black railroad workers on the southern railroad lines differ from that of other parts of the country? Why was there, in a sense, greater "opportunity" for blacks in the South during much of this period?

Arnesen certainly does not approve of white workers' racism but he does place their racist notions of black workers on the railroads into a broader working-class ideological context.

Arnesen suggests that white workers and trade unionists had, broadly speaking, two choices when it came to how to deal in the workplace with racial "others," most notably African Americans but including Asians and European new immigrants. What were those choices?

What role did employers play in insuring that railroad jobs were white men's jobs?

The federal government? Did the manpower demands of World War I change things?

How did black workers respond to anti-black violence and other forms of discrimination?

****

Study questions for on-line reading on "SOCIALISM, RADICALISM, FASCISM," February 4.

The author employs a historical definition of socialism, using it in this essay to refer to socialism as conceived and implemented (to the extent that it was implemented) in Western European and British Commonwealth countries, and in the US.

He distinguishes socialism from social democracy but points as well to the overlapping aspects of these two important terms.

The term "communism" can refer to a wide variety of social movements and perspectives. In theory, it should not be applied only to government and society in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, the post-World War II regimes in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Cambodia, North Korea, and so forth. In practice, however, Communism (with a capital C), a.k.a. "real existing Communism,"is commonly and understandably applied to these regimes when we hear the word.

Within the world of 20^th Century Communist regimes, the following terms are important to gain an understanding of:

*Bolshevism

Leninism

Trotskyism

Stalinism

Maoism

While many people drawn no distinctions between socialism, as alluded to above, and communism (or Communism), it is true that throughout the 20^th Century socialists and social democrats, on the one hand, and Communists and communists, on the other, have usually been bitter, and sometimes violent, rivals.

Similarly, it is important to understand that anarchists and syndicalists, while sharing with communists and socialists a hatred of capitalism, have sharply different prescriptions for change and have often been early and frequent victims of communist regimes.

While some matters of terminology can be confusing, it is essential to grasp the fundamental differences that separate fascist movements and regimes from those on the Left. This is particularly so when one looks historically at the values, aspirations, and, usually, the behavior, of the rank-and-file adherents to Left movements with respect to racism, militarism, democracy, and civil liberties.

In informed discourse, it is important to avoid casual reference to ideological labels.

*****

February 9-11, 2005 Z&G, pp. 33-42.

Labor in the decade of the Great War

1. During the 1910s, tremendous demographic developments reshaped the ethnic and geographical contours of the working class.

2. What did African Americans expect to find in the North that was lacking in the South? How were they received by northern workers? Dealt with by the federal government?

3. The "Labor Question" was a central concern for all belligerent countries, most definitely including the USA.

4. American workers both supported the war effort and exhibited fierce militancy.

5. Which of these statements is true:

A) The federal government demonstrated unprecedented support for organized labor.

B) The federal government was harshly repressive toward organized labor.

6. With respect to women's experience during World War I, the old adage was never truer: "The more things change[d], the more they stay[ed] the same."

7. The Russian Revolution had powerful repercussions within the United States.

8. The failure of the great steel strike of 1919-20 was a significant turning point in US labor history--and in modern US history generally.

*****
For Friday, February 11: Z&G, 42-49. Examine these numbers before class.

1920s--Facts and Figures

1. In 1920, there are 9 million private autos, one for every 12 people; in 1929, 26.5 million, 1 for every 4.6 people.

2. In the 1920s, US farmers have about 139,000 trucks and 246,000 tractors; in 1930, 900,000 trucks, 920,000 tractors.

3. Value of radios, radio equipment produced: 1921=$12.9 million; 1929=$388 million.

4. In the Twenties, horsepower per worker increases by 50% in manufacturing; 60% in mining; 75% in transport.

5. Output per worker increases by 72%, 1919-1929.

6. Gainful employment:

no. employed in mining drops by 80,000

no. employed in agriculture drops 1 million

no. employed in manufacturing grows by 100,000

no. employed in construction grows by 800,000

no. employed in trade, finance, education, govt. grows by 3.8 million

no. of females gainfully employed grows by 27.4%

7. Population trends:

Immigration from abroad (not inc. W. Hemisphere):

1910-1914: 1.034 million per year

1925-29: 304,000 (total)

Between 1915 and 1928, 1.2 million African Americans leave the South for the North and West.

8. Average hourly wages in manufacturing 66.2 cts. per hour in 1923 to 71 cts. in 1928. Real hourly wages increase by 7%; real weekly wages by 2% (work week down 15% [59 to 50 hours], 1900-1926).

9. In 1929, 21% of all families make less than $1000 per year; 42 less than $1500; 71% less than $2500. 21.5 million families have no savings; 24,000 families have 34% of all savings.

10. Strikes

Year No. No of Workers % of employed wage earners on strike

1919 3630 4,160,000 20.8

1922 1112 1,610,000 8.7

1925 1301 428,000 2.0

1929 921 289,000 1.2

11. Union membership: 1920=5,034,000; 1929=3,625,000

12. Unemployment: Ranges between 5.2% and 7.7%, 1925-29.

13. Education: 1890-1924 number of college students increases 352% (cf. 79% general population increase); between 1900 and 1930, increase is 500% (cf. 69% population growth). Graduate students: 1900=5832; 1930=47,255. Between 1900 and 1930, an eightfold increase in high school enrollment. Number of teachers and professors grows 1920-1930 by 41.5% (cf. population growth of 16%).

14. Life expectancy. For white females, at birth: 1910=52.54; 1930=62.67.

*******

For Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Quiz on Hall, ADisorderly Women@

1. Hall argues that: a) gender distinctions played little role in the Elizabethton strike; b) the rayon strikers found local elites to be surprisingly sympathetic toward and supportive of their labor activism; c) awareness of the role of gender permits important new insights into our understanding of this otherwise well-known episode in labor history; d) parental disapproval of the rash activism of these young women played a key role in the strikers= defeat.

2. The workers who toiled in the rayon plant were: a) brought down from the North because of their industrial skills; b) displaced coal miners; c) African Americans initially imported as strike breakers; d) local women.

3. The strike that broke out in March, 1929: a) was fomented by outsiders affiliated with the American Federation of Labor; b) was initiated by the rayon workers themselves, without outside impetus; c) was an immediate failure because only a small handful of workers actually walked out; d) was supported by male workers and opposed by women workers.

4. Which of the following statements best characterizes the social and cultural perspectives of the rayon strikers: a) the striking women were naive and innocent provincials, with little knowledge of the modern world of the 1920s; b) the striking women were surprisingly sophisticated and articulate; c) the strikers were young women who had taken industrial employment only as a distasteful and desperate last resort; d) the strikers were highly skilled men who resented management=s abusive treatment.

5. Which of the following statements best characterizes the public behavior of the rayon strikers, according to Hall: a) they were inventive and even playful in their interaction with the National Guardsmen sent in to Akeep order@; b) though the women began the strike, they willingly retreated to the sidelines once actual picketing began; c) anxious to maintain their reputation in the small town, they quickly and decisively turned against women of questionable morals such as Texas Bill and Trixie Perry; d) they were passive and submissive, leaving the Aheavy lifting@ of labor militancy to the men folk.

Bonus question

Which of the following kinds of sources did Hall rely most heavily on: a) local newspapers; b) reports of federal authorities; c) oral histories; d) trade union records.

****

For Monday, February 21. 2005

Zieger and Gall, American Workers, American Unions, pp. 50-65: "Depression"; "Protest"; "Unions and Politics"

Making a New Deal
1. During the 1920s, workers were encouraged to place trust in corporate America. In return for hard work, submission to the rigors of modern industrial discipline, and weakening of workers' traditional means of protection and defense, such as ethnic communities and labor organizations, they would gain expanding access to consumer goods, modern conveniences and appliances, and new forms of entertainment and amusement. This "deal" also implicitly promised improvements in health care, education, and personal amenities. Unlike the case in most other industrial countries, government here was to play only an indirect and marginal role in the provision or underwriting of basic services and benefits (although the public schools are an exception to this generalization).

2. Major corporations attempted to implement this "deal" through high wages, corporate-sponsored welfare programs, company unions, and rationalized personnel policies while at the same time engaging in no-holds-barred combat against labor organizations.

3. With the curtailment of the "new" immigration during World War I and through the restrictive legislation of the 1920s, the "white" working class was becoming increasingly "American" and more homogeneous. The continuing movement of African Americans into the North, along with the entry of thousands of Mexican and other Latino workers-not covered by the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s-insured the continuance of ethnic tensions.

4. By the end of the 1920s, much of the overt conflict that had characterized labor relations for the previous half-century appeared to have been dissipated. Unions were in retreat; radical organizations such as the IWW and the Socialist Party were being marginalized; and workers' voting behavior seemed to reflect a decline in class-based politics, as witnessed by the sweeping victory of Republican Herbert Hoover in 1928..

5. The onset of the Great Depression called into question this corporate-promoted "deal." Corporations slashed payrolls, abandoned welfare plans, and imposed more rigorous production standards, thus unilaterally (so it seemed) changing the bargain. American workers remained committed to high levels of private consumption and improving standards of housing, health, and education. Since the corporate-sponsored deal of the 1920s now seemed to be abrogated, working people demanded a new deal, one that rested on a revived labor movement and involved a more active and responsive federal government. Unemployed demonstrations, anti-eviction actions, and strikes flared as the depression deepened. Working people greeted the election in 1932 of Franklin Roosevelt, with his promise of a new deal, enthusiastically. They were now determined to build unions and spur the government into action to enable them to resume the march to prosperity and social progress promised in the 1920s.

Measuring the crisis

1. Market value of shares traded on the NYSE

1925-$27 billion

1929 (October)-$87 billion

1933-$18 billion

Average closing value, September, 1929=$366.29 a share

Average closing value, December, 1932=$96.63 a share

2. NY Times average of representative stocks:

September, 1929=452

July 1932=52

3. Bank failures

1929-659; $250 million

1930-1352; $853 million

1931-2294; $1.7 billion

1932-1456; $750 million

4. Industrial production, last quarter, 1930, is 26% below peak level of summer, 1929

5. Unemployment

April, 1930-3 million

October, 1930-4 million

October, 1931-7 million

October, 1932-11 million

March, 1933-14 million

6. Wages and farm income

Industrial wages drop 42%, 1929-33

Gross farm income (already poor during 1920s) drops by 56%, 1929-33

7. Other income indicators, 1929-33

National income drops from $87.8 billion to $40.2 billio

Per capita income drops from $681 to $459

Why the Crash? Both easy and hard to answer.
Easy: a downturn was to be expected; markets are volatile; there had been brief breaks in the market through the summer of 1929.

Hard: Why such a massive sell-off October 23-24? Why the irreversible downward spiral? Why didn't this market "work" the way markets are supposed to-i.e., drive out the speculators, arrive at sensible share prices, and attract capital back in?

Why did the Crash turn into a Depression?
Galbraith specifies five factors:

Maldistribution of income (low wages, low farm prices and income)
Bad banking structure (no FDIC, regulation)
Bad corporate structure
Problems of international trade and finance (Smoot-Hawley Tariff)
Poor state of economic intelligence

4. Why was the Depression so severe?

It occurred at a time when the old international financial institutions, which Britain had overseen for 200 years, were weakened and in disarray owing to the effects of World War I; and before newer arrangements that depended on US world financial leadership were in place.

It occurred when older industries such as textiles, heavy steel, railroads were in relative delcine and before newer, dynamic industries, such as food processing, light metals, electronics, petroleum-based sectors were large enough to pick up the slack, even tho, by and large, these industries did continue to prosper, even during the worst stages of the Great Depression.

Note here the uneven course of the depression. There were significant upticks in the economy, as well as "depressions-within-the-depression," notably the "Roosevelt Recession" of 1937-39. See the chart.

1. Conservatives say-Meddling by government, which interfered with the normal workings of the market and created uncertainty and political conflict. The pain of those disadvantaged, while regrettable, is a necessary component of capitalism's creative destruction.

2. Radicals-Capitalism prone to excess and collapse. An irrational system always teetering on the verge of chaos. Survives through exploitation and greed. The chickens had finally come home to roost. It'll take a big war this time to save capitalism's chestnuts.

3. New Deal liberals-The system combines 19^th century ideas and complex modern realities. It needs direction in the form of governmental direction and regulation. Workers need a social safety net in the form of unemployment insurance, job training, government stimulus to the economy. The community needs to mobilize its resources to restore prosperity and to assist those put in need through no fault of their own. Capitalism is too important to be left entirely to the capitalists.

****

March 2005. Reading: Zieger and Gall, 96-103

I. STRUCTURAL FACTORS IN THE REBIRTH OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE 1930S

1. Homogenization of the industrial working class

2. Worker militancy born of the unmet promises of the 1920s

3. Widespread discrediting of corporate stewardship

4. Favorable political and governmental alignments

5. Energetic and farsighted labor leadership; availability of committed radical activists

II. CIO-AFL Comparison

CIO AFL

Industrial unionism Craft unionism

Racial equality Racial discrimination

Political engagement Voluntarism

Radical influences Anti-radicalism

III. CIO chronology

October 16, 1935-Lewis slugs Hutcheson

September 1, 1936-CIO unions suspended from AFL

November 3, 1936-FDR Re-elected

December 30, 1936-February 11, 1937-Flint Sit-Down strike

March 2, 1937-Steelworkers Organizing Committee signs contract with US Steel

May 30, 1937-Memorial Day massacre, Chicago

September, 1937-Roosevelt Recession begins

November 22, 1940-Lewis steps down as CIO president; Philip Murray succeeds

June, 1941-Ford Motor Company signs UAW contract

*****
Pre-1935 Federal Labor Law

I. Injunctions

Clayton Act, 1914

Norris-La Guardia Act, 1932

II. Railroad Labor Legislation, 1888-1934

Railway Labor Act of 1926; amendments, 1934

III. National War Labor Board, 1918-19

IV. Davis-Bacon Act, 1931

V. Norris-La Guardia Act, 1932

VI. National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933-Section 7 (a)

National Labor Board, 1933-34

National Labor Relations Board, 1934-35

The Wagner, or National Labor Relations, Act, 1935 It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate. . . obstructions to the free flow of commerce. . . by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association. . . [by] choosing representatives of their own choosing, the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment. . . .

I. The purposes of the Act

II. Functions, powers, procedures

III. Validation by the Supreme Court, May, 1937

-Importance of the Jones and Laughlin v. NLRB decision

-Other rulings (e.g., Mackay, 1938; Fansteel, 1939)

IV. Operations of the early NLRB, 1935-41

V. Attacks on the NLRA and NLRB

VI. Looking ahead: The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947

Other New Deal Labor Legislation

I. Railway Labor Act Amendments, 1934

II. Motor Carrier Act, 1935

III. Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, 1937

IV. Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hours), 1938

NLRA Balance Sheet

PRO:

-Provided peaceful mechanism for settling union recognition disputes

-Significant factor in reduction of labor-management violence

-Election procedure brings democratic practices to workplaces and beyond

-Curbed employers' victimization of union supporters

CON:

-Robbed labor movement of autonomy

-Bureaucratized labor-management relations

-Permitted racial discrimination

-Discouraged worker activism and limited labor's ambitions

*****
Class session of March 14, 2005; Zieger and Gall are 104-117.

Here are some important points. What evidence best supports each? What are the circumstances and implications of each statement?

As was the case a quarter of a century earlier, the onset of war benefitted the American working class.

As America drew closer to war, the already-great involvement of the federal government in labor relations expanded.

The international crisis of the late 1930s and early 1940s highlighted the important role that Communists and their allies had come to play in the American labor movement.

John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman were allies in the creation of the CIO but became bitter enemies with the onset of World War II.

In 1940, John L. Lewis’s support of GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie shook the House of Labor.

*****
Quiz on Bruce Nelson, "Organized Labor and the Struggle for Black Equality in Mobile during World War II," Journal of American History 80: 3 (Dec. 1993): 952-88

1. According to Bruce Nelson, the wartime labor shortage in Mobile was in good part "artificial," a result of unwillingness to hire local blacks, who remained underemployed during the early stages of the war.2. According to Nelson, it is remarkable that in view of the importance of Mobile's ship building and repairing facilities, the federal government made no effort to deal with racial tensions in the workplace

3. Nelson finds that in Mobile at least, the AFL was far more responsive to the concerns of black workers than was the CIO.

4. The May, 1943, riot in Mobile, though seemingly triggered by the entry of blacks into skilled jobs, had a significant gender component as well.

5. The "dilemma" faced by the CIO Shipyard Workers' union was this: black workers were its most loyal supporters but it was the very presence of blacks in the union that turned whites against Local 18.

****
For the class session of March 21, we discussed the following terms:

No Strike Pledge

National War Labor Board

John L. Lewis and the 1943 coal strikes

"Hate" strikes

Maintenance of Membership

The Communist Party and Its Role in World War II

Organized Labor's Politicial Activities during World War II

Fair Employment Practices Committee

****

Quiz for March 23, 2005

Ruth Milkman, "Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Management's Postwar Purge of Women Automobile Workers," On the Line: Essays in the History of Auto Work, ed. Nelson Lichtenstein and Stephen Meyer (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989): 129-152

1. The most important factor in driving women from the auto factories after World War II was: a) employer hiring policies; b) union indifference; c) women's uninterest in continued industrial employment; d) pro-veteran federal legislation.

2. Before World War II, women enjoyed relatively few employment opportunities in the auto industry because: a) employers preferred to hire blacks for low-wage jobs; b) the industry's high-wage profile insured that men would hold most production jobs; c) the physically heavy work characteristic of auto work precluded large-scale employment of women; d) most auto work was highly skilled and thus controlled by powerful male-only craft unions.

3. During World War II: a) few women were willing to work in auto plants; b) the experiment in female employment was a dismal failure; c) female employment was carefully portrayed as a temporary expedient; d) employers proved eager to employ women as a means of reducing wage levels.

4. The electrical industry compiled a better record of providing women with industrial employment than did the auto industry because: a) its union was more progressive than the UAW; b) its employers were more enlightened than were the auto executives; c) it had had a long record of female employment before World War II; d) only kidding--its record was actually worse than auto's.

5. Which of the following statements about black auto workers after World War II is most accurate: a) since few blacks were hired during the war, few were laid off after the war; b) since blacks had entered the auto industry in massive numbers before WWII, they were better able to keep their jobs than were the more recently hired women; c) black workers were better able than women workers to keep their new jobs in good part because of the existence of a strong civil rights movement that made impossibly any effort to drive them out of Detroit-area plants; d) blacks retained their positions despite the opposition of the UAW.

*****

Quiz for Friday, April 1, 2005. Reading: Z&G, chapter 6. Remember: To get credit for the quiz, you have to attend the full class session.

1. According to the authors, the use of the term "affluent" to characterize the lives of blue collar workers in the 1950s and 1960s is: a) an understatement; b) entirely appropriate; c) misleading because most blue collar workers actually earned more than the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "affluent" threshold; d) misleading because most blue collar workers earned less than the BLS's threshold for affluence.

2. During this period, African American workers: a) experienced significant economic gains; b) were driven out of the industrial and governmental jobs many had obtained during World War II; c) achieved statistical economic parity with white workers; d) gained new job opportunities as the older industries began a period of decline.

3. Which of the following statements about patterns in collective bargaining during this period is the most accurate: a) most of the gains achieved during World War II were lost; b) union contracts achieved both substantial wage increases and major advances in so-called "fringe" benefits; c) under the leadership of such innovative unionists as George Meany and Walter Reuther, organized labor gained an increasingly influential role in corporate decision-making, investment policy, and governance; d) the refusal of the major corporations to participate in collective bargaining led to renewed labor violence and governmental intervention.

4. The authors believe that, overall, the elaborate post-World War II contract provisions regarding work rules, discipline, and shop floor relations: a) trapped workers in a bureaucratic maze that actually intensified the inherently repressive nature of industrial work; b) encouraged strikes; c) provided workers with important protections; d) stifled productivity and innovation.

5. The merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955: a) saw the CIO emerge as the dominant partner; b) was welcomed by conservatives because it brought order and discipline to the disputatious labor movement; c) led immediately to a vast new organizing drive; d) reflected George Meany's cautious and pragmatic view of organized labor's role more than it did Walter Reuther's expansive and ambitious perspective.

*****

April 6, 2005

Race and War: The Turbulent Sixties
Zieger and Gall, pp. 214-28

1. By the Sixties, organized labor was both part of the established order and site of restive rebellion.

<>2. As was the case with virtually every major institution, organized labor felt the strainsand stresses of the war in Vietnam.

3. Organized labor: Ally in the freedom struggle or bastion of white men's privilege?

***

Here are some notes from Aaron Brenner, "Rank-and-File Rebellion, 1966-1975," Ph. D., Columbia, 1996, that will supplement the material in Zieger and Gall, chapter 7

"extraordinary level of militancy exhibited by rank-and-file unionists. . . during the late 1960s and early 1970s." (28)

"A rapid rise in all kinds of labor conflict. . . during"this decade. (29)

It's a transition period: from "unprecedented prosperity and confidence to . . . long-term stagnation and doubt." (29)

Here are some numbers:

Annual rate of GNP growth:

1947-67=3.9%

1967-79=2.9%

Annual rate of productivity growth:

1947-67=3.2%

1967-79=1.5% (and note that 1973-79 figure falls below 1%

Annual rate of inflation:

1947-67=2.2%

1967-79=6.7% (and 9%, 1973-79)

Unemployment:

1950s-average is 4.5% (range is 2.9-6.8%)

1960s-4.8% (3.5-6.7)

1970s (thru 1977)-6.3% (4.8-8.5)

These numbers are on page 30.

Inflation is particularly low in the early 1960s, averaging about 1.2% annually through 1963. Beginning in 1965, it rises rapidly-figures for 1965-70 are quadruple those of early in the decade.

Gross weekly real wages 1948-65 grow annually by 2.2%. But in 1966-75, only .13%, a falloff of 94%. (33)

Says Business Week in September, 1966: "The [average] union member . . . is militant, confident, and loaded for bear." (35) Corporate profits, after stagnating in the 1950s, are unusually high in the early 1960s. But profit levels begin to fall off in the mid-60s at just about the time workers begin demanding a greater share in the early decade prosperity and just as inflationary pressures and productivity problems begin to mount.

Actually, while the 1950s are normally viewed as a period of relatively amicable labor-management relations, many employers had begun to follow the "hard line"in negotiations. Note Boulwarism in GE [tough, aggressive, take-it-or-leave-it bargaining]; the steel strikes, particularly that of 1959 [which were huge walkouts centered around issues of shop floor control]; and a general determination [on the part of employers] in the wake of the 1958 recession to hold the line after what business leaders and conservatives saw as the unwarranted and excessive worker gains of the 1950s].

Through 1962, contract rejections [i.e., workers vote against contracts that their union leaders negotiate] are rare but rise steadily through the 1960s and into the 1970s.

There is a distinct decade-long strike wave, 1966-75. Strike activity increases sharply after the mid-1960s. It peaks in 1970, with 66 million work days lost, 5716 strikes. 17% of union members on strike that year. In 1970, there are 34 major strikes (more than 10,000 workers), most in 18 years. GE, GM, US Postal Service, railroads. Note prevalence of teachers' strikes, formerly virtually unheard of, through late 60s and into 1970s-including the first statewide teachers' job action, which took place in Florida, September, 1968. (41)

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If there were to be a quiz on the reading for Wednesday, how would you do?

AMH 3500. April 6, 2005. Reading: Michael Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995, ed. Robert H. Zieger (University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 146-75

1. Memphis, Tennessee: a) is of little interest historically, since it is a stereotypical "Old South," mint-and-julep town; b) was notable in the 1960s for the complete disfranchisement of its African American citizens; c) provides a good laboratory for the study of the interaction of civil rights and race-related economic problems; d) endured a lengthy sanitation strike despite the recent (1967) election of a liberal and enlightened mayor.

2. According to Honey, Martin Luther King, Jr.: a) was an elitist black leader who paid little attention to the economic problems of lower income folks; b) had an astute and prescient [prescient: anticipative; forward-looking] grasp of the connections between economic and civil rights concerns; c) refused to cooperate with organized labor because of its racist practices; d) was becoming increasingly detached from political and economic concerns in the year or so before his death.

3. Honey describes some of the general demographic and economic tendencies characterizing American life in the 1950s and 1960s. Which of the following phrases best captures his treatment of this theme insofar as African American workers were concerned? a) black economic advance stagnates; b) rising proportion of industrial jobs benefits unskilled workers; c) African Americans achieve economic equality with whites; d) ironically, civil rights achievements fragment the black community.

4. According to Honey, Memphis's sanitation workers: a) gained little from union recognition; b) organized and won their strike despite the indifference of the national labor movement; c) effectively linked themes of labor rights and civil rights; d) waged their strike with little support from among the city's African American elites.

5. Which of the following statements best captures Honey's understanding of Dr. King's enduring legacy: a) without economic justice, civil rights advance remains compromised; b) non-violence is the most important lesson to be derived from Dr. King's life; c) organized labor and civil rights are, in the end, incompatible; d) Dr. King achieved more during his "moderate" pre-1965 phase than he did in his "radical" post-1965 phase.

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April 8, 2004

April 8, 2005. Quiz on Joshua B. Freeman, "Hardhats: Construction Workers, Manliness, and the 1970 Pro-War Demonstrations," Journal of Social History 26: 4 (Summer 1993): 725-44

1. In May of 1970, construction workers in New York and St. Louis assaulted: a) African American protestors; b) anti-war demonstrators; c) military recruiters; d) non-union workers.

2. According to Freeman, the raucous male sexuality of construction workers: a) was a healthy antidote to an increasingly feminized social environment; b) did not actually exist but was a kind of social myth created by effete academic observers; c) reflected a kind of male bonding rooted in the distinctive work culture of the construction industry; d) masked homoerotic practices that were widespread on construction sites.

3. Traditionally, the construction, or building trades, unions were: a) bastions of white male privilege; b) pioneers in racial integration; c) among the weakest and most fragile in the labor movement; d) dominated by criminal elements.

4. Early in the 20^th century, construction workers, according to Freeman, were notable for: a) their violence; b) their efforts to appear responsible and respectable; c) their political radicalism; d) their resistance to unionism.

5. Which of the following statements about the impact of changing economic developments in the 1970s and 1980s on construction workers is the most accurate: a) an expanding building boom created a "golden age" for building tradesmen insofar as wages and employment opportunities were concerned; b) immigration restriction led to labor shortages, triggering widespread unemployment; c) an unstable economy and employer resistance led to a sharp decline in union strength; d) the construction industry was little affected by the changing economy of these decades.

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Discussion of Nancy MacLean, "The Hidden History of Affirmative Action"

There is a good summary of affirmative action matters at http://www.infoplease.com/spot/affirmative1.html

April 11-13, 2005

Affirmative action rulings

Griggs v. Duke Power (1971). New education qualifications and tests. "Disparate impact." Employer has to show that these devices, which in effect disadvantage Blacks, are necessary for the efficient conduct of business.

Albemarle Paper Co. vs. Moody (1975) Affirms and extends "disparate impact" and encourages both private and public employers to be proactive in developing minority recruiting, hiring, and promoting to avoid subsequent litigation.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). Split decision.

United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979). Agreement between USWA and Kaiser that called for a 50% quota of racial hiring so as to preclude Title VII litigation because of past discrimination. SC okays.

Fullilove v. Klutznick (1980) approves minority set-asides in awarding of public contracts. Ward's Cove Packing Company v. Atonio (1989) Backs off-employer only has to show that a given policy serves a legitimate business purpose, not that it is necessary to conduct business; and requires that plaintiffs had to show specific evidence of discrimination, not merely cite statistical disparity.

But in 1991, Congress overturns Ward's Cove, re-affirming affirmative action remedies.

But in Firefighters Local Union No. 1794 v. Stotts (1984) the Court protected existing union seniority provisions and invalidated Black superseniority.

And in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986), the Court invalidated a layoff policy that protected more recently hired Black teachers.

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April 13-15, 2005. Z&G, chapter 8.

    Class discussion topics for Friday

1. Since this edition of AWAU was completed, employment in manufacturing in the US has declined by about 3 million jobs. Today only about 15% of American workers are in the manufacturing sector.

2. Although the labor movements in almost all economically advanced countries have experienced a decline in membership and influence, nowhere has the erosion in union strength been more pronounced than in the US.

3. Despite its relatively shrinkage in membership and its collective bargaining troubles, organized labor remains a potent force in American politics.

4. Whereas once the labor movement scorned or ignored minorities and women, these groups now constitute its lifeblood.

5. There are, broadly speaking, two conservative perspectives on the role of the labor movement in modern life. They are:

    1. Unions are illegitimate monopolies whose growth and influence in the period c. 1933-
    1968 as the product of unusual historical circumstances and whose demise is to be celebrated.

    2. Unions, though prone (like all institutions) to abuse, are a useful component of a vibrant civic culture and as such play a worthwhile, if all too often these days partisan, role in American life.

6. The growing gap between the well-off and others has been a fact of life in America for the past 25 years. Opinions differ as to whether it is a pernicious, divisive development or a necessary condition in providing incentives for entrepreneurship and economic advance.

7. In the 1930s old line laborites warned that the seemingly pro-union National Labor Relations Act could (and, some said, would inevitably) become an impediment to organized labor.

8. Few issues in recent years have generated such bitterness and division as so-called “free trade” initiatives such as NAFTA and the more recent FTAA program.

9. Whereas for a century the US was among the most strike-prone industrial nations, for the past two decades it has been at the bottom of the league tables.

10. While this subject is not treated in chapter 8, the response of organized labor to the war in Iraq raises interesting questions and invites historical comparisons.

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