Book Description
This book examines how it was possible and what it meant for ordinary factory workers to become effective unionists and national political participants by the mid-1930s. We follow Chicago workers as they make choices about whether to attend ethnic benefit society meetings or to go to the movies, whether to shop in local neighborhood stores or patronize the new A & P. Although workers may not have been political in traditional terms during the '20s, as they made daily decisions like these, they declared their loyalty in ways that would ultimately have political significance. As the depression worsened in the 1930s, not only did workers find their pay and working hours cut or eliminated, but the survival strategies they had developed during the 1920s were undermined. Looking elsewhere for help, workers adopted new ideological perspectives and overcame longstanding divisions among themselves to mount new kinds of collective action. Chicago workers' experiences as citizens, ethnics and blacks, wage earners and consumers all converged to make them into New Deal Democrats and CIO unionists.
Customer Reviews:
Great insights on the labor movement during the depression.......2005-01-20
Cohen presents a seemingly broad and well-supported thesis to explain the success of unionism in the 1930s. However, while all persuasive, some of her major arguments seem only tangentially relevant to either each other or her main thesis. While she provides a strong, coherent explanation as to why Chicago workers' political loyalties and attitudes shifted so dramatically during the depression, it is frankly nothing new. Yes, workers felt entitled to aid and came to favor a strong, interventionist federal government, but the connections she draws between this and the unionization of Chicago factories remain tenuous. Correlation, as they say, is not causation; but Cohen argues, both implicitly and explicitly, that workers' preference for government intervention was a major factor in the labor struggles of the 1930s. If Cohen had acknowledged that labor solidarity and preference for big-government welfare programs were but two symptoms of worker's frustration, and accordingly broadened and adjusted her thesis, her chapter about Chicagoans attitudes vis-à-vis big government could have provided excellent support for her final argument. In the context of her overarching thesis, however, the chapter seems almost like a square peg in a round hole. Instead of letting her explanations-albeit insightful-of the working class's political consciousness reflect back on the people who hold them, she advances the somewhat further-fetched notion that worker's political experiences led directly to the later growth of unionization. None of this, however, detracts from her excellent account of the organizations and institutions that were shared between the too. Cohen primarily fails by not supporting her argument that these interrelations were anything more than marriages of political expediency forged in desperate times. That the Communists dabbled in both the labor movement and various forms of political activism does not mean that both were one and the same. Cohen rejects the simple explanation that they were both separate outlets for the collective rage of the underemployed.
Ask many American historians for a short answer why the CIO was so successful in the 30s, and they may answer: because of the NLRA, hesitance of local, state, and federal governments to take the politically inexpedient step of supporting industry, and, most importantly, a mass of desperate workers imbued with a newfound distrust for the system that had betrayed them. This is essentially the answer Lizabeth Cohen arrives at; she simply takes a circuitous-if enjoyable-path to reach it. She provides a complex, nuanced answer in a place where a simple answer might do. Perhaps she's asking a different question than it appears she is. The title of her book, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939, implies that she's looking at a topic broader than the unionization of Chicago factories, but by bookending her many salient and though-provoking claims with the tales of 1919's failed strike and the CIO's ascendancy in the 1930s, she is limiting the scope of her book far too narrowly. Nonetheless, nothing is intrinsically wrong with any of Cohen's arguments and she provides a fascinating window into the mind of America's urban, industrial workforce during the depression.
In-depth Analysis of Chicago and Chicagoans.......2004-02-15
Cohen's work based on her Ph.D. Dissertation at UC-Berkeley proves to be a comprehensive, engaging, and insightful look into popular culture in 1920s and 1930s Chicago. She moves seamlessly from labor history to cultural history to ethnic history without losing the reader by including helpful charts, figures, and photographs. Her section on the nature of mass media and mass consumption undoubtedly provides evidence of her writing style in The American Pageant.
Cohen does not create a delineation between immigrants that came to the area and natives of the Chicago area, which goes a long way in terms of bias. She covers African-Americans, Polish, Italians, and Jews without being critical one way or the other. Each chapter seems to be able to live by itself, which gives the book a flavor of being a compendium of papers instead of a conjoined work. All in all, Cohen does a wonderful job examining Chicago and Chicagoans whatever their ethnicity may be.
Outstanding view of workers in Chicago between the wars.......2003-02-17
Making a New Deal is an absolutely incredible look at workers during the Interwar period in Chicago. Cohen has crafted a monumental work that not only covers workers political and union organization but also covers the changes in their lives resulting from societal changes such as the advent of radio and the chain store.
What's particularly appealing and interesting about this book is also what it says about modern times. Cohen discusses that due to the advent of radio and national networks, fewer workers got their local and world news from ethnic newspapers or other papers in Chicago. As can be seen from this, the current lement concerning the consolidation of newspapers, TV and radio stations isn't new, it began even in the 1930s. Also interesting is how many immigrant parents worried about their children becoming influenced by American culture that they did not understand, particularly clubs, dance halls and radio music.
Cohen's work is profoundly important and most of the book is a great read.
A superior book on labor, ethnicity, and politics.......2003-02-01
A well-researched and original book describing the shifting allegiances of Chicago workers from ethnic help societies to their welfare capitalist employers to finally the US government. In addition to the subject of the growing labor movement, the book is also a great survey of the various ethnic/racial groups of 1920s Chicago and their differing experiences with Americanization.
There is a book I would like to recommend as a virtual "sequel" to this one. The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas Sugrue. While Cohen's book is about the creation of the New Deal coalition in the factory neighborhoods and towns of Chicago, Sugrue's book is about the disappearance of the factories and the departure from the Democratic coalition in the 1960s of the same groups who joined it in the 30s. Sugrue's book also won a Bancroft prize and if you like one you will surely like the other.
Making Sense of the Great Depression.......2001-04-21
Cohen's synopsis of Chicago through the 1920's and into the tough times of the 1930's is truly a remarkable account that makes sense of the Great Depression in a way that truly brings it to life for the reader. Though focused on Chicago, the story she tells really holds true for the whole US and delves deeply into the real world reality of the depression experience. Carefully outlining the change in America from an industrial capitalism to a welfare state society, the important changes in America are clearly explained and brought to life through understandable and vivid human stories. The fourth chapter discussing the actual alteration in the worker's mindset that created an atmosphere for not only the New Deal, but for the federal government activity we are used to today, is truly the highlight of the book. Just chapter alone earns this book my highest recommendation, as overall it is one of the better books of this era and topic with which I am familiar.
Book Description
Cesar Chavez is known as one of America's greatest civil rights leaders. When he led a 340-mile peaceful protest march through California, he ignited a cause and improved the lives of thousands of migrant farmworkers. But Cesar wasn't always a leader. As a boy, he was shy and teased at school. His family slaved in the fields for barely enough money to survive.
Cesar knew things had to change, and he thought that--maybe--he could help change them. So he took charge. He spoke up. And an entire country listened.
An author's note provides historical context for the story of Cesar Chavez's life.
Customer Reviews:
A beautiful children's book with an illustrated personal story and a larger message.......2006-09-09
Harvesting Hope tells the tale of Cesar Chavez, but more than that, it reveals the power of collective bargaining and fighting for what is just in the world. As a children's book, it has appeal as a well-illustrated biography, an important history lesson, a story of family and personal triumph, and a book with a message. Chavez's crusade took place several decades ago, but the plight of migrant farm workers remains, despite the tremendous inroads Chavez made with La Causa. The story of Chavez's childhood, hard days of labor, and fight for worker's rights is timeless, and Kathleen Krull's award-nominated book deserves a place on every child's bookshelf.
The story of a lesser known American Hero.......2006-02-22
This is a great picture book for all ages. The heroic story of Cesar Chavez is left out of most U.S. history classrooms, save those in California. This book would be an enlightening addition to any classroom or children's library.
Si Se Puede.......2005-06-08
Let's begin by saying that the drawings are super and captivating. Yuyi Morales creates characters that show emotion and the result is a drawing of emotion from the young reader. As the title implies this is the story of Cesar Chavez who many adults came to know about from his work with the farmworkers in California. This story humanizes the man by beginning in his childhood. The roots of the farmworker leader are explored as a young person traveling from crop to crop , from state to state. A drought in Arizona began the family oddyssey that would result in Caser Chavez becoming familiar first hand with the troubles of the farmworkers. Life on the road became a harsh reality. The treatment he encountered in school forced him to drop out in eighth grade but the treatment in the fields wasn't much better, at times it was much worse. This is simple story about a complex problem that one man was determined to overcome. He wanted justice for farmworkers and organized. He became to Mexicans what MLK was for civil rights, for Mexicans it was an extension of civil rights. This is a beautiful book for young readers or those not so young that are learning to read in English if they have a reading foundation in another language. Although it is recommended for children ages 6-9, middle school students, ages 9-12, especially those with limited English proficiency can benefit from this story well told. For the teacher or parent this book can help instill pride and understanding as to how determination, perseverance and hard work can overcome even the greatest odds.
Beautiful, educational, brought tears to my eyes!.......2004-11-25
I recommend this book for anyone 4 and up (adults included!) Beautiful illustrations and a wonderful telling of an important part of history.
Harvesting Hope is Hopeful.......2004-08-02
This story is a wonderful way to teach children about the people who have made a difference in our world. People like Cesar Chavez. The story beautifully illustrates how Cesar did not use violence to solve problems but rather he used his mind, as his mother had taught him. The illustartions are vivid and real. The story is well written and teaches an important part of California history in a wonderful way. It reaches the heart of all ages. This is a great book for any elementary school classroom library, even High School.
Book Description
"A rare combination of an author, [Mike Davis is] Rachel Carson and Upton Sinclair all in one."-Susan Faludi
"[Davis' writing is] perceptive and rigorous."-David Montgomery, The Nation
"[Davis' work is] brilliant, provocative, and exhaustively researched."-The Village Voice
"[Davis' work is] eloquent and passionate."-Tariq Ali
No One Is Illegal debunks the leading ideas behind the often violent right-wing backlash against immigrants.
Countering the chorus of anti-immigrant voices, Mike Davis and Justin Akers Chacon expose the racism of anti-immigration vigilantes and put a human face on the immigrants who risk their lives to cross the border to work in the United States.
Davis and Akers Chacon challenge the racist politics of vigilante groups like the Minutemen, and argue for a pro-immigrant and pro-worker agenda that recognizes the urgent need for international solidarity and cross-border alliances in building a renewed labor movement.
Writer, historian, and activist
Mike Davis is the author of many books, including City of Quartz, The Ecology of Fear, The Monster at Our Door, and Planet of Slums. Davis teaches in the Department of History at the University of California at Irvine, and lives in San Diego. Davis is the recipient of the 2001 Carey McWilliams Award and the World History Association Book Award.
Justin Akers Chacon is professor of U.S. History and Chicano Studies in San Diego, California. He has contributed to the International Socialist Review and the book Immigration: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press).
Customer Reviews:
Fair trade, working class solidarity, compassion, etc........2007-06-14
This book dismantles the narratives we hear from the establishment media regarding undocumented workers. It covers the history of oppression migrant workers have faced, including beatings from the KKK and the Order of Caucasians, among other vigilantes organized by agribusiness interests.
It also covers the devastating impacts of NAFTA on Mexico's economy. Page 121 points out, "Over 1.3 million small farmers in Mexico were pushed into bankruptcy by cheap American grain imports between 1994 and 2004. Luis Tellez, former undersecretary for planning in Mexico's Ministry of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources, estimates that as many as 15 million peasants will leave agriculture in the next few decades, many seeing migration north as the only option. . . Meanwhile, the deindustrialization of Mexico continues unabated. Mexico lost an unprecedented 515,000 jobs in the first three months of 2005 alone."
What industry there is, is now found in the sites of hyper-exploitation known as maquiladoras.
One negative review calls the book "Marxist." Well, the book is mostly just an honest analysis of the situation. Something that demagogues like Tom Tancredo avoid. Tancredo likes to whip up hysteria. His congressional district (one of the wealthiest in the country) has a large Lockheed Martin plant. Lockheed will be making a fortune on the further militarization of the border.
Anyway, the book does include one quotation from Karl Marx, and I think it's worth repeating. Justin Akers Chacon writes: "Marx illustrated the self-sabotaging nature of the conflict between 'native-born' workers and immigrant workers in his analysis of the relationship between the English and Irish working classes when he wrote, 'The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker, he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus stengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social and national prejudices against the Irish worker. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.'
Inter-ethnic and international class solidarity, or lack thereof, has been a determinant of the progression, inertia, or regression of the American labor movement. When nationalist or chauvinist sentiments are strong, the working class is weak, demonstrating the deep penetration of ruling-class ideology into working-class consciousness."
This book also covers the conquest of Mexico, and the opportunities for organizing immigrants.
It's a sensational book that I have been quoting over various message boards. I'll be buying several copies of it.
[...]
another book for school.......2007-05-16
I bought this book for a class at college. I am really tired of this propoganda. I do not agree with the viewpoints.
Utter Trash Whose Only Redeeming Quality Is It's Potential Use As Toilet Paper, Or To Start A Nice Fire.......2007-04-15
I had a peek at this book at a snobby little bookstore in Seattle called "The Left Bank" - I spent a half hour reading several chapters, and the experience was not unlike listening to that pseudo-intellectual idiot you knew back in college. The one that thought the world would be great if we'd all embrace utopian Marxism. Imagine that person wrote a book so completely one sided that it utterly dismisses any dissenting opinion as Fascism or Right Wing Extremism. That's what you'd have here, a book that already has it's mind made up, which is great if you're an ILLEGAL alien or one of the dozens who might share the author's point of view. Anyone interested in an intelligent two-sided analysis of the immigration debate would do well to steer clear of this leftist propaganda.
Great Book.......2007-01-19
Read this book for a class, truly enjoyed the book and the class
A scholarly, heavily researched yet harsh wake-up call to American immigration policy injustice........2006-11-05
Written by Justin Akers Chacon (professor of US History and Chicano Studies in San Diego) and Mike Davis (teaches in the Department of History at the University of California at Irvine), No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border is a sharp rebuke against anti-immigration vigilantism, denouncing the often violent right-wing backlash against immigrants and striving to put a human face upon the men and women who cross America's borders. Chapters survey white, anti-immigrant violence in California history from the inception of the Ku Klux Klan, the "Yellow Peril", and anti-Filipino riots to modern times, with an especially critical eye turned toward the Minutemen. Also scrutinized is the history of how dominant corporate interests and the wealthiest members of America have used immigration policy to control labor - such as the bracero program, an individualized contract that subjects a guest worker to deportation at the employer's relative discretion; such "guest worker" programs actually give agribusiness employers more control over their workers than they would have over undocumented workers, who can migrate to construction other fields and thus place some pressure upon agribusiness to raise its poverty-level wages. A scholarly, heavily researched yet harsh wake-up call to American immigration policy injustice.
Book Description
Praise for previous editions of The State of Working America "The State of Working America remains unrivaled as the most-trusted source for a comprehensive understanding of how working Americans and their families are faring in today's economy."-Robert B. Reich
"It is the inequality of wealth, argue the authors, rather than new technology (as some would have it), that is responsible for the failure of America's workplace to keep pace with the country's economic growth. The State of Working America is a well-written, soundly argued, and important reference book."-Library Journal
"If you want to know what happened to the economic well-being of the average American in the past decade or so, this is the book for you. It should be required reading for Americans of all political persuasions."-Richard Freeman, Harvard University "A truly comprehensive and useful book that provides a reality check on loose statements about U.S. labor markets. It should be cheered by all Americans who earn their living from work."-William Wolman, chief economist, CNBC's Business Week "The State of Working America provides very valuable factual and analytic material on the economic conditions of American workers. It is the very best source of information on this important subject."-Ray Marshall, University of Texas, former Secretary of Labor
"An indispensable work . . . on family income, wages, taxes, employment, and the distribution of wealth."-Simon Head, The New York Review of Books "No matter what political camp you're in, this is the single most valuable book I know of about the state of America, period. It is the most referenced, most influential resource book of its kind."-Jeff Madrick, author, The End of Affluence "This book is the single best yardstick for measuring whether or not our economic policies are doing enough to ensure that our economy can, once again, grow for everybody."-Richard A. Gephardt "The best place to review the latest developments in changes in the distribution of income and wealth."-Lester Thurow
The State of Working America, prepared biennially since 1988 by the Economic Policy Institute, includes a wide variety of data on family incomes, wages, taxes, unemployment, wealth, and poverty-data that enable the authors to closely examine the effect of the economy on the living standards of the American people.
Customer Reviews:
the hobo philosopher.......2007-06-27
This book is exactly what I wanted. I'm a part-time journalist writing for a small town newspaper and I like numbers. Nothing is better than a percentage or a statistic to support your story. This book has them all and an explanation to support their accuracy or inaccuracy. It is a great tool. It is a must for anyone who wants to know "The State of Working America" - which I do.
Change Is Needed Now and Here's Why.......2007-04-30
If you can wade your way through the statistics, this book is enlightening and edifying, often sad. The commentary and interpretation help clarify the wealth of information. It graphically illustrates that nothing has changed after all these years of hope and promises for change: the rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer, poverty is endemic to our tired, unimaginative economic system, etc., etc., etc.
This book caused me to re-read Kevin Phillips' book "The Politics of Rich and Poor," published in 1990. It provides statistical and anecdotal evidence of the negative effects of Reagan-omics on our social system, much as Bush-enomics has. I even went farther back and re-read Michael Harrington's "The Other America," the seminal, monumental book of its time in 1962 about poverty in America.
These books along with so many others make you ask, as we've asked so many times, "When will it ever change?" I guess making people aware of the problem, although it's readily apparent in everyday life, is the place to start. These books, representing 45 years of rhetoric, make you agonizingly aware that things have gone nowhere but down. So, read all of them.
Book Description
This concise overview of the labor movement in the United States focuses on why American workers have failed to develop the powerful unions that exist in other industrialized countries. Packed with valuable analysis and information, Hard Work explores historical perspectives, examines social and political policies, and brings us inside today's unions, providing an excellent introduction to labor in America.
Hard Work begins with a comparison of the very different conditions that prevail for labor in the United States and in Europe. What emerges is a picture of an American labor movement forced to operate on terrain shaped by powerful corporations, a weak state, and an inhospitable judicial system. What also emerges is a picture of an American worker that has virtually disappeared from the American social imagination. Recently, however, the authors find that a new kind of unionism--one that more closely resembles a social movement--has begun to develop from the shell of the old labor movement. Looking at the cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas they point to new practices that are being developed by innovative unions to fight corporate domination, practices that may well signal a revival of unionism and the emergence of a new social imagination in the United States.
Customer Reviews:
a great introduction to the American labor movement.......2005-07-15
In this book, Fantasia and Voss--two long-time, respected labor scholars--provide a great overview of and introduction to the American labor movement. The book was actually originally written for a French audience, so they assume you know very little about the American labor movement, explaining things like the National Labor Relations Board and the Taft-Hartley Act, instead of assuming you know about them. They also at times contrast the American labor movement with those in Eruope, which is also frequently illuminating.
Building upon Voss' previous work, they address the question of the supposed exceptionalism of the American working class--the fact that, unlike European working classes, they never developed a militant labor movement that fought for the interests of all workers and embraced socialist or social-democratic politics; instead, the labor movement has fought primarily for benefits for its members and embraced mainstream politics. But, Fantasia and Viss argue, the American labor movement was not always like this--in the mid- to late nineteenth century, the American labor movement was as militant, broad-minded and radical as its European counterparts, if not more so. What was exceptional was not the American working class, but the American capitalist class, which was far more hostile to labor than their European counterparts. This hostile social environment, in which any major labor organziation that showed signs of a broad vision of social justice was brutally crushed, lead to the thoroughly domesticated politics of the AFL-CIO, in which they agreed to act as business' junior partner, gaining increased wages and benefits for their members, in return for abandonning any broader vision and supporting the Cold War agenda.
Even at its height, this bargain excluded most workers outside the core manufacturing industries. When the US and global economy began to undergo major changes in the 1970s (changes Fantasia and Voss don't explain well--this is one of the few weaknesses of the book), US business decided this bargain no longer suited its needs, rolling back the gains workers had made, a process that accelerated once the Reagan administration came to power. Traditional labor leaders were totally unprepared for this assult and it looked like organized American labor might go down the tubes.
Fortunately, the decentralized structure of some unions, while allowing for local corruption, had also allowed for progressives to survive in some localities. They have responded to the crisis of American labor with innovative new tactics and a new vision that embraces the interests of all workers, not just union members. They have begun working with other community groups and organizing groups unions had traditionally ignored--people of color, women and immigrants. (This is the other big weakness of the book--Fantasia and Voss don't pay enough attention to how deeply entrenched racism, sexism and nativism were entrenched in mainstream unions. They treat these matters casually instead of as central to understanding the crisis of American labor). With the election of Sweeney and the New Voices slate to the leadership of the AFL-CIO, these efforts began to get some official support. It is in this new, social movement unionism Fantasia and Voss see hope. However, it faces huge obstacles, both in the form of the entrenched leaders of many labor unions, leaders who are often conservative, corrupt or both; and the continuing hostility of American business and government to organized labor.
Despite the weaknesses I have mentioned, overall Fantasia and Voss do a great job of summarizing the history of the American labor movement, how it got into the mess it is today, and possible avenues out of the mess. The book is hopeful without being naive.
Book Description
On a beautiful spring day, March 25, 1911, workers were preparing to leave the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village when a fire started. Within minutes it consumed the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside. The final toll was 146—123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in New York City history until September 11, 2001. Harrowing yet compulsively readable, Triangle is both a chronicle of the fire and a vibrant portrait of an entire age. Waves of Jewish and Italian immigrants inundated New York in the early years of the century, filling its slums and supplying its garment factories with cheap, mostly female labor. Protesting their Dickensian work conditions, forty thousand women bravely participated in a massive shirtwaist workers' strike that brought together an unlikely coalition of socialists, socialites, and suffragettes. Von Drehle orchestrates these events into a drama rich in suspense and filled with memorable characters. Most powerfully, he puts a human face on the men and women who died, and shows how the fire dramatically transformed politics and gave rise to urban liberalism.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Read about 20th Century Fire.......2007-08-30
This is a great book about the economics and history of twentieth century America and how the sweatshops were a big part of immigrant life in New York. The Triangle Factory disaster still has a message for those modern day factory shops in other parts of the world who continue to ignore safety laws and concerns. as a similar tragedy could easily happen again. This book uncovers those safety issues, that today should be standard in all factories across the globe. Of the 250 workers in the building, only a little more than 100 survived the fire. The death toll marked 140 people dead (123 of them women, of which about a hundred jumped or fell to their death). It is shocking to know that the owners were found not guilty, and even collected $60,000 in insurance payments. I pray that this tragedy will continue to arouse public action and continued lobbying for workplace safety. This is an excellent book!
The Disaster and the Era.......2007-07-23
The New York Triangle fire of 3-25-1911 was the deadliest workplace disaster until 9-11-2001. About 100 workers died every day in the nation's workplaces then (p.3). Workplace safety was still a goal. Chapter 1 tells about that era. Tammany Hall was founded to support the Revolution against British rule, and the large landholders (p.21). Their function was to help people, and they collected from governmental operations (p.23). By the late 19th century they worked for the moneyed interests (p.24). William R. Hearst pushed municipal ownership (p.31). The immigrants made New York the ready-made clothes manufacturing capital. New loft buildings were an improvement over sweatshops and allowed improved productivity.
Changes began with the November 1909 election. All Tammany candidates lost to progressive candidates. The garment workers all went out on strike November 23, 1909 and soon won a pay raise, a 52-hour week, and a closed union shop from some manufacturers. Most factory owners formed an association to resist the workers. The help of rich society women was invaluable (their interest was in woman suffrage). Conflicts among the groups appeared (p.79). The workers wanted a union shop (p.81). The settlement saw higher wages and shorter hours, union membership was no longer prohibited (p.86). Chapter 4 has the history of that era, and tells why immigrants came to the golden land of America. The clothing trade was better than laundry or being a sales clerk (pp.113-114).
Chapter 5 tells about the fire. Scraps of cotton and tissue paper were very flammable (p.119). The water pails could not extinguish the fire. The water tank on the roof had no water (p.121). The scrap under the cutter's tables spread the fire rapidly (p.138). Fire-safe factories had existed for decades (p.160). The moneyed classes of New York did not choose sprinkler systems, fire-walls, fire doors, enclosed fire stairways as in other cities. Insurance companies made money selling policies, the higher the risk the more they made (p.161)! The Triangle Waist Company had repeated fires. A fire allowed them to collect on unsold inventory (p.162). Fashion changes resulted in arson. There were other fires at shirtwaist factories in 1911 (p.163). Why did some factories carry excess insurance? The fire was under control in just over 30 minutes (p.166).
In the aftermath everyone pointed the blame at someone else (pp.184-185). New laws for better fire escapes, enclosed fireproof stairways, automatic sprinklers, and fire drills were suggested. Pages 189-191 explain how Tammany Hall worked; also pages 198-199. The strength of the Socialist Party changed Tammany's policies (p.213). A series of new laws in 1913 remade NY labor law (p.215). Page 216 explains the legislator's trick of stalling a bill. In 1913 Tammany Hall chose a workingman-friendly platform and won its greatest statewide victory (pp.217-218). Locking factory doors during working hours was a misdemeanor. If this resulted in death it was manslaughter (p.220). Blanck and Harris were arrested and tried. Max Steuer was the greatest lawyer in New York. Did Judge Crain fix the trial (p.235)? Lawyer Steuer asked Kate Alterman to repeat her story so it seemed rehearsed and deceitful (p.249). Yet it was all true (p.250)! Many witnesses told of the movement of people during that day which implies unlocked doors (p.251). The judge's instructions were overwhelmingly favorable to the defense (p.255). There was conflict, but the jury heeded the judge's instructions. There was a secret in Judge Crain's life (p.257). His bias was with the defendants (p.258). The `Epilogue' tells what happened afterwards. The owners collected a huge amount over their actual losses (p.264)! Blanck was arrested and fined in 1913 for locked doors (p.265).
Heartrending, but change is overstated.......2007-02-12
In America it is assumed that market forces and the moral character of business owners will operate to protect workers from egregious safety issues. Of course, that defies historical fact. It has only been via government regulation that workers have ever achieved even a modicum of safety, and then only if government regulators do not turn a blind eye towards obvious problems. In the New York City of 1910 it was well known that factory lofts at the top of multi-story buildings, at a minimum, needed sprinkler systems, firewalls, access to stairways, functional fire escapes, smoking bans, unlocked doors, and periodic fire drills.
Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners of the Triangle Waist Company and makers of women's shirtwaists, ignored every one of those measures, which resulted in the horrific death of 146 mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women on Mar 25, 1911 when a discarded cigarette started a fire in cloth scraps on the eighth floor of their factory. The fire consumed that story and the two above it, consisting of 27,000 sq feet, in about 15 mins. The warning to the sewing machine operators on the ninth floor was delayed and then a locked stairway door was encountered. Over fifty leapt to their death; others fell down a shaft when the overloaded fire escape tore loose, and the remaining died on the floor, blocked from escape. Miraculously, about 350 escaped, some via the roof. Spectators watched in horror as the ladders of the NYFD fell short by thirty feet of rescuing those standing on the ledges.
The author makes the claim that this fire changed America, initiating a period of reform and ushering in urban liberalism, which is even today the basis of the Democratic Party. Actually, it was already an era of change and turmoil. The Progressive era of reform had started during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, due in large part to labor strife that had been occurring over several decades. The author begins the book by following Clara Lemlich, the firebrand leader of recently formed Local 25 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), in her very public efforts in trying to organize a strike among all shirtwaist workers and in being stalked by thugs hired to harm her sufficiently to stop her organizing. As a testimony to her resiliency, she overcame the beating to lead 20,000 workers out on strike in Nov, 1909.
Tammany Hall, the longstanding Democratic political machine in New York, was interdependent with the working class - especially in NYC; jobs and other benefits were exchanged for votes. But Tammany was not reformist; it generally supported businessmen and the status quo. The police department was a prime enforcer of their program including the harassment, if not brutal put down, of labor agitators. Tammany-beholden judges were more than willing to send picketers to the city workhouse for offences no greater than holding a sign. But many of NYC's newest immigrants, who were mostly Jewish, had been radicalized by being subjected to and escaping pogroms in Russia. Furthermore, upper-middle-class society matrons were aghast at the living and working conditions for these workers, and lent considerable support to those situations. Charles Murphy, the low-profile leader of Tammany, knew that this segment of the voting public would move in the direction of socialism if Tammany did not support reform.
In what is definitely its strongest part, the author devotes about one-third of the book to recapitulating what happened inside the factory as well as the public official response once the fire started. Though the fire consumed the factory in about 15 mins, the action the author describes among both the survivors and the doomed was fast and furious. Primarily from the testimony at the ensuing trial of the owners and from interviews of survivors by Leon Stein years later, he is able to personalize what happened in the factory on that fateful day. In addition, the author supplies in an appendix the most up-to-date listing of those who died in the fire. Six remain unidentified.
The owners of the factory retained prestigious lawyer Max Steuer to represent them against charges of manslaughter, based on illegally locking a stairway door. Steuer simply overmatched both the prosecutor and the immigrant women witnesses, easily finding holes in their stories and planting doubts. In addition, the author contends that the judge Thomas Crain conducted the trail in a highly prejudicial manner by disallowing much of the grim facts to be presented and instructing the jury that conviction was permitted only if the evidence could show that the owners specifically knew that the door in question was locked on that day at the time of the fire. The fact that there was evidence that the door was invariably locked at that time of day and that the bolted lock was found in the charred remains apparently carried no weight. Both Steuer and Crain had for many years supported Tammany constituents as the owners of Triangle Waist Company were.
Though the owners were acquitted, Tammany did not ignore the public clamor for some sort of reform. Tammany's chief representatives in the New York legislature, Robert F. Wagner in the Senate and Alfred E. Smith in the Assembly, were instrumental in forming the Factory Investigating Commission only three months after the Triangle fire, which embarked on passing sweeping safety legislation. That commission also included college-educated Frances Perkins, FDR's future Secretary of Labor and key player in the New Deal along with Robert Wagner.
Although reform measures were inspired by the Triangle fire, the author admits that the fire did recede from public memory fairly quickly. The author's claim that the strike "changed America" is certainly overstated. In 1912, not more than a year later, Lawrence, Mass was the scene of a huge textile workers strike led by the IWW in which local policemen resorted to clubbing children as striking parents attempted to put them on trains to Philadelphia. Though not the same deadly scenario as the Triangle fire, the overreaction of public officials towards striking workers was perhaps more egregious. A year after that, the striking silk workers in Paterson, NJ were subjected to massive arrests, which killed the strike. The huge reaction against labor unions after WWI, which decimated membership, undoubtedly was a major factor in the Great Depression as workers simply lacked the buying power to sustain the economy.
The author does not define "urban liberalism." It is clear that liberalism in all of its reformist variants has been severely rolled back over the last thirty years in the US. Median wages have been virtually flat throughout that time. Less than nine percent of US private sector workers are now represented by unions. More realistic statements can be made concerning the standing of workers and unions in the US. First, worker reforms are sporadic in nature, are often subject to rollback at some time, and are often unenforced. Second, the business class ultimately prevails in confrontations with workers; controlling information flow through media ownership is a huge advantage. Even if employment in the 21st century does not bring with it the same hazards as 100 years before, the world of work can still be highly contentious and difficult for employees.
The book is heartrending. It gives a flavor of the times: the immigration wave, the difficult living and working conditions, the forces arrayed against change, etc. But it is a snapshot. As those issues have unfolded over time, the story is often far more complex than the author intimates, and is not on a progressive climb.
a good story that was forgotten about.......2007-02-10
This is a very good story that was basicaly forgotten about (before the book). It tells the details of a horrific fire that killed scores of immigrant factory workers (mostly women). It also, touches upon the early suffrogett women's movement along with other political issues that went on in the early 20th century. It brings the reader to a time and a fire that seems to be forgotten
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.......2006-11-11
The star rating that I have assigned the book is based on your customer service. I have not had an opportunity to read the book as yet. I purchased the book based on an interview that I heard on a C-Span Book TV program.
Book Description
Historians overwhelmingly have blamed the demise of Reconstruction on Southerners' persistent racism. Heather Cox Richardson argues instead that class, along with race, was critical to Reconstruction's end. Northern support for freed blacks and Reconstruction weakened in the wake of growing critiques of the economy and calls for a redistribution of wealth.
Using newspapers, public speeches, popular tracts, Congressional reports, and private correspondence, Richardson traces the changing Northern attitudes toward African-Americans from the Republicans' idealized image of black workers in 1861 through the 1901 publication of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. She examines such issues as black suffrage, disenfranchisement, taxation, westward migration, lynching, and civil rights to detect the trajectory of Northern disenchantment with Reconstruction. She reveals a growing backlash from Northerners against those who believed that inequalities should be addressed through working-class action, and the emergence of an American middle class that championed individual productivity and saw African-Americans as a threat to their prosperity.
The Death of Reconstruction offers a new perspective on American race and labor and demonstrates the importance of class in the post-Civil War struggle to integrate African-Americans into a progressive and prospering nation.
Book Description
âIn her new chic outfit, she looks like anything but a stewardess working. But work she does. Hard, too. And you hardly know it.â So read the text of a 1969 newspaper advertisement for Delta Airlines featuring a picture of a brightly smiling blond stewardess striding confidently down the aisle of an airplane cabin to deliver a meal.
From the moment the first stewardesses took flight in 1930, flight attendants became glamorous icons of femininity. For decades, airlines hired only young, attractive, unmarried white women. They marketed passenger service aloft as an essentially feminine exercise in exuding charm, looking fabulous, and providing comfort. The actual work that flight attendants didâensuring passenger safety, assuaging fears, serving food and drinks, all while conforming to airlines’ strict rules about appearanceâwas supposed to appear effortless; the better that stewardesses performed by airline standards, the more hidden were their skills and labor. Yet today flight attendants are acknowledged safety experts; they have their own unions. Gone are the no-marriage rules, the mandates to retire by thirty-two. In Femininity in Flight, Kathleen M. Barry tells the history of flight attendants, tracing the evolution of their glamorized image as ideal women and their activism as trade unionists and feminists.
Barry argues that largely because their glamour obscured their labor, flight attendants unionized in the late 1940s and 1950s to demand recognition and respect as workers and self-styled professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, flight attendants were one of the first groups to take advantage of new laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Their challenges to airlines’ restrictive employment policies and exploitive marketing practices (involving skimpy uniforms and provocative slogans such as âfly meâ) made them high-profile critics of the cultural mystification and economic devaluing of âwomen’s work.â Barry combines attention to the political economy and technology of the airline industry with perceptive readings of popular culture, newspapers, industry publications, and first-person accounts. In so doing, she provides a potent mix of social and cultural history and a major contribution to the history of women’s work and working women’s activism.
Customer Reviews:
First-class analysis of an underappreciated position.......2007-03-31
This gen-x feminist has certainly flown on more than my share of flights thanks to airline deregulation (1978), but having grown up after sex discrimination laws were passed, I also did not previously have the full understanding of all the historical nuances which went into achieving legislative battles making the skies sexism free.
It was interesting to read how the stewardess position (as it was then called) became so tightly controlled, ironically having originally developed in an era when there were few other 'interesting' employment opportunities available to women. By the 1950's, the airlines had codes of stewardess conduct which look a million times stricter than anything handed down at my workplaces.
Expected to retire at age 35, a woman had to meet certain mandatory height and weight requirements, and could not be married or have any children in order to successfully perform her duties to her customers at all times. Barry's research methodologies expressly delineate though that the airlines, reflective of the larger society's biases, only hired white unmarried girls for these 'jobs' but tellingly did not treat them in the appropriate manner an employer would treat their employees.
A stewardess was expected to thanklessly fulfill many tasks simultaneously, mother, sex-pot/kitten, nurse---but in the cruel twist of irony, she also was not welcomed in the union ranks as an equal after undergoing all of these horrific working conditions, the women were expected to continue letting male union leaders represent them as had been the previous tradition.
Rather than be docile, that ongoing disparate treatment inadvertently galvanized the women into taking action for each other. Sisterhood wasn't a `trendy slogan' each other was all they had.
In the 1970's. a organization called Stewardesses for Women's Rights protested the airline industry's increasingly sexist treatment of women employees and that organization also joined the national campaign for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. I'm certain that airline officials were not intending to create a crop of highly creative and very ticked off feminist activists!
Book Description
Unique for its breadth of coverage and depth of analysis this uncommonly readable book is certain to become a classic. Five of the book's ten chapters provide in-depth analyses of representative companies and the remarkable people who led them. These firms include McDonald's, Procter & Gamble, Boeing, General Motors, and Ford-all of which began as entrepreneurial startups and grew to become big businesses. Their success stories are counterbalanced by a detailed dissection of the monumental failure of RCA, long the world leader in consumer electronics but today all but extinct.
Interspersed with the company-centered chapters are five brief "overview" chapters: one each on women and African Americans in business, and three on vital sectors of American business: first finance, then chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and, most recently, computers, Silicon Valley, and the Internet.
With 35 photographs and a comprehensive bibliographic essay, this compact, enjoyable work will be highly appreciated by anyone interested in how American business powered the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent reference for academic use or personal enjoyment.......2000-12-28
I read this book for business school and enjoyed it thoroughly enough to recommend it to friends and family who are interested in the recent history of business. This book documents the major events and themes in American Business during the past 80 years. The writing gives enough detail without being boring. In addition, I found it interesting to see how certain themes persist through time proving that history does repeat itself. The book is a very quick read and provides the reader with enough information on each era. After that, the reader can use the suggested reading list to learn more about the subjects, eras and people that might interest him/her. Overall, a great read.
Average customer rating:
- Do you really want to escape?
- Sal Si Puedes means Escape If You Can
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Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution
Peter Matthiessen
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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ASIN: 0520225848 |
Book Description
In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City while Chavez lived in Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where his career as a union organizer took off. This book is Matthiessen's panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent traveling and working with Chavez. In it, Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence.
More than thirty years later, Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. A whole era comes alive in its pages: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez's series of hunger strikes; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was, how important his life had been.
A new postscript by the author brings the reader up to date as to the events that have unfolded since the writing of Sal Si Puedes. Ilan Stavans's insightful foreword considers the significance of Chavez's legacy for our time. As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez's life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.
Customer Reviews:
Do you really want to escape?.......2004-06-02
Sal Si Puedes, by Peter Matthiessen, is an excellent chronicle of the adult life of the farm workers' revolutionary, Cesar Chavez. This Biography written by Matthiessen is from the day he meets Chavez to the time he passed away in 1992. Chavez was a activist for the rights of all farm workers, and believed that union representation was not only a privilege, but a right of all workers. With the installment of the Bracero program, non American people brought into the united states were allowed to work in the fields, because Lobbyists in Washington were successfully able to determine that no American was willing to do the back breaking manual labor of picking and harvesting the fields in California. This book was simply put, is the best book that I have read in my young adult life.
One thing that I enjoyed in this biography is the use of language. I found the linguistics easy to understand. With the easy language and prose writing, this made the biography an easy read. Because I spent a short time of my later childhood in Delano, Where the book took place, I knew exactly where everything was, and with his descriptive, powerful words, I felt like I was back in Delano. Stepping out of my own skin and looking at the book from a non-Californian's perspective, the description and detail is awesome.
Another thing I liked about the book was the accuracy of the historical fact. Family members of mine lived in the time of the farm workers movement, and after having discussed the biography with them, they, too, agree that the accuracy and detail of events that took place are superior. The chronicling of not only the personal life, but also business life of Chavez was easily understood, and Matthiessen did an excellent job with this Biography.
Sal Si Puedes means Escape If You Can.......2001-06-21
Am forever indebted to my mentor Bea Brickey for getting me involved with the United Farm Worker union locally, and for instilling in me the importance of getting involved and living by Christ's motto that what you do to the least of them you do to Christ.
The book begins with a reminder form Cesar Chavez himself, who said in 1992 two years before his death that "The rich have money, the poor have time". The reader is reminded that patience was his tool of success.
The book is just shy of 400 pages and is a humbling as well as an energizing read. The title Sal Si Puedes is from the San Jose barrio where Chavez' farm workers union work was birthed. The book was begun with a three year stint the author had in the late 70's with Chavez with much appreciated postscript that brings the reader up to date with the events that incurred since the 60's and 70's.
Bea would spend hours passing on the wisdom that Chavez and the other UFW activists had taught her. How she and her husband were often taunted by San Joaquin farmers and called commies and pinkos and how Chavez and the other UFW workers who simply wanted decent working conditions and a living wage were taunted like this as well. How migrant workers were/are exposed to high pesticide levels and that in one breath the farmers denounce the "slave" labour workers for wanting decent housing and wages, while bemoaning the fact that they can't find American who will do the damn stoop labour for slave wages.
This is a book I am passing on to a lot of people, since I believe it is so important that we as citizens, stand up for what is right and that sometimes people have to have their comfort levels challenged.
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