The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925This 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. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 9 | |
| 58 | |
The operative | 112 |
The art of cutting metals | 171 |
White shirts and superior intelligence | 214 |
Our time believes in change | 257 |
Patriots or paupers | 330 |
This great struggle for democracy | 370 |
A maximum of publicity with a minimum of interference | 411 |
Index | 465 |
Other editions - View all
The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor ... David Montgomery No preview available - 1987 |
The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor ... David Montgomery No preview available - 1987 |
The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor ... David Montgomery No preview available - 1987 |
Common terms and phrases
Amalgamated Association American black workers bosses capital century Chicago City coal miners committee common contractors convention Council craft unions craftsmen delegates demand Democratic earnings economic efforts eight-hour day elected employers employment engineers factory Federation foremen gang Gompers hired History immigrants industrial inside contracting iron Italian John July Knights of Labor labor movement leaders lodges machine machinists manufacturing membership ment metal metal-trades militant mills Moreover mule spinners National NMTA NWLB officers operatives organization output percent piece rates piecework Pittsburgh plant political President production protest puddlers quotation railroad railway Ralph Easley reform Report role Schenectady scientific management shops skilled social Socialist Party steel strike strikers struggles task Taylor textile workers thousand tion trade unions U.S. CIR U.S. Commissioner U.S. Steel UMWA unionists United United Metal Workers votes wage Walsh women working-class workplace York
Popular passages
Page 229 - It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this cooperation rests with the management alone.
Page 258 - The great revolution that takes place in the mental attitude of the two parties under scientific management is that both sides take their eyes off of the division of the surplus as the all-important matter, and together turn their attention toward increasing the size of the surplus...
Page 267 - Since we, as employers, are responsible for the work turned out by our workmen, we must have full discretion to designate the men we consider competent to perform the work and to determine the conditions under which the work shall be prosecuted, the question of the competency of the men being determined solely by us.
Page 88 - William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (New York: Alfred A.
Page 219 - The first of these four groups of duties taken over by the management is the deliberate gathering in on the part of those on the management's side of all of the great masses of traditional knowledge, which in the past has been in the heads of the workmen, and in ths physical skill and knack of the workmen, which he has acquired through years of experience.
Page 223 - The full possibilities of functional foremanshlp, however, will not have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop are run by men who are of smaller caliber and attainments and who are, therefore, cheaper than those required under the old system.
Page 331 - When I think of the many voices that were heard before the war and are still heard, interpreting America from a class or sectional or selfish standpoint, I am not sure that, if the war had to come, it did not come at the right time for the preservation and reinterpretation of American ideals.
Page 356 - An examination of these minutes discloses the fact that a commission of seven men chosen by the President seems to have devised the entire system of purchasing war supplies, planned a press censorship, designed a system of food control, and selected Herbert Hoover as its director, determined on a daylight saving scheme...