This book studies the changing ways in which American industrial workers mobilised concerted action in their own interests between the abolition of slavery and the end of open immigration from Europe and Asia. Sustained class conflict between 1916 and 1922 reshaped governmental and business policies, but left labour largely unorganised and in retreat. The House of Labor, so arduously erected by working-class activists during the preceeding generation, did not collapse, but ossified, so that when labour activism was reinvigorated after 1933, the movement split in two. These developments are analysed here in ways which stress the links between migration, neighbourhood life, racial subjugation, business reform, the state, and the daily experience of work itself.

The Adelphon Kruptos is the secret ritual manual of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, a working class secret society which grew into the first mass trade union in North America. Founded in 1869, it grew to 800,000 members, 20% of all the workers in America, by its height in 1886. It was notable for including women and men, black, brown and white workers (although, to its lasting shame, not Asian-origin workers). Advancing a co-operative socialism, an ethical and cultural approach rather than a Marxist or class-conflict approach, it was unable to cope with the intensification of class conflict after the depression of the 1880s and collapsed. The ritual manual shows the crossover of the secret societies, which were a prominent feature of late, Victorian America, an alternative ethics, with the organizations of the working class. Its celebration of the nobility of labor and the power of solidarity continues to inspire. Samuel Wagar's Masters' thesis work on the intersection between the socialist movement and the Theosophical Society in the 1920s came from long standing interest in working class organization, the occult and metaphysical subcultures, and social change. He is a Wiccan priest and chaplain at the University of Alberta as well as a Doctor of Ministry student at St. Stephen's College in Edmonton. He has four other books out, and continues to be excited by scholarship. [email protected]

Newly updated: “An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history.” —The American Prospect Praised for its “impressive even-handedness”, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book “[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor”, enlivened by illustrations from the celebrated comics journalist Joe Sacco (Library Journal). Now, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor’s role in American life, with new material on sex workers, disability issues, labor’s relation to the global justice movement and the immigrants’ rights movement, the 2005 split in the AFL-CIO and the movement civil wars that followed, and the crucial emergence of worker centers and their relationships to unions. With two entirely new chapters—one on global developments such as offshoring and a second on the 2016 election and unions’ relationships to Trump—this is an “extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history [that] could become an evergreen . . . comparable to Howard Zinn’s award-winning A People’s History of the United States” (Publishers Weekly). “A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people.” —Noam Chomsky

The book concludes with an examination of the present day crisis facing the labor movement.

In the only modern study synthesizing nineteenth-century American labor history, Bruce Laurie examines the character of working-class factionalism, plebian expectations of government, and relations between the organized few and the unorganized many. Laurie also examines the republican tradition and the movements that drew on it, from the General Trades Unions in the age of Jackson to the Knights of Labor later in the century.

Focusing on a story largely untold until now, Theresa A. Case studies the "Great Southwest Strike of 1886," which pitted entrepreneurial freedom against the freedom of employees to have a collective voice in their workplace. This series of local actions involved a historic labor agreement followed by the most massive sympathy strike the nation had ever seen. It attracted western railroaders across lines of race and skill, contributed to the rise and decline of the first mass industrial union in U.S. history (the Knights of Labor), and brought new levels of federal intervention in railway strikes. Case takes a fresh look at the labor unrest that shook Jay Gould's railroad empire in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. In Texas towns and cities like Marshall, Dallas, Fort Worth, Palestine, Texarkana, Denison, and Sherman, union recognition was the crucial issue of the day. Case also powerfully portrays the human facets of this strike, reconstructing the story of Martin Irons, a Scottish immigrant who came to adopt the union cause as his own. Irons committed himself wholly to the failed strike of 1886, continuing to urge violence even as courts handed down injunctions protecting the railroads, national union leaders publicly chastised him, the press demonized him, and former strikers began returning to work. Irons’s individual saga is set against the backdrop of social, political, and economic changes that transformed the region in the post–Civil War era. Students, scholars, and general readers interested in railroad, labor, social, or industrial history will not want to be without The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor.

Why has the labor movement in the United States been so weak and politically conservative in comparison to movements in Western Europe? Kim Voss rejects traditional interpretations--theories of ?American exceptionalism?--which attribute this distinctiveness to inherent characteristics of American society. On the contrary, she demonstrates, the American labor movement had much in common with its English and French counterparts for most of the nineteenth century. Only with the collapse of the Knights of Labor, the largest American labor organization of the century, did the U.S. movement take a different path.

Canadian labour history and working-class struggles are brought to life in this anthology of nine short comics, each one accompanied by an informative preface. Each comic showcases the inspiring efforts and determination of working people who banded together with others to fight to change the world. The history of working-class struggle is a fascinating story of conflict and coercion, of resistance and triumph. It has the drama of defeat mixed with the thrill of victory, though not always in equal measure. But, working-class history is not just interesting and exciting; it also contains important lessons for labour and social justice activists today. Illustrate! Educate! Organize! Contributors include Jo SiMalaya Alcampo, Althea Balmes, Christine Balmes, Sam Bradd, Paul Buhle, Nicole Marie Burton, David Camfield, Sean Carleton, Conely de Leon, Robin Folvik, Ethan Heitner, Greg Kealey, Orion Keresztesi, Mark Leier, David Lester, Andrée Lévesque, Zenee May Maceda, Dale McCartney, Doug Nesbitt, Bryan Palmer, Andrew Parnaby, Joan Sangster, Kara Sievewright, Julia Smith, Ron Verzuh, Tania Willard (Secwepemc Nation).

Enlisting memory in a new fight for freedom From the Gilded Age through the Progressive era, labor movements reinterpreted Abraham Lincoln as a liberator of working people while workers equated activism with their own service fighting for freedom during the war. Matthew E. Stanley explores the wide-ranging meanings and diverse imagery used by Civil War veterans within the sprawling radical politics of the time. As he shows, a rich world of rituals, songs, speeches, and newspapers emerged among the many strains of working class cultural politics within the labor movement. Yet tensions arose even among allies. Some people rooted Civil War commemoration in nationalism and reform, and in time, these conservative currents marginalized radical workers who tied their remembering to revolution, internationalism, and socialism. An original consideration of meaning and memory, Grand Army of Labor reveals the complex ways workers drew on themes of emancipation and equality in the long battle for workers’ rights.