Labor & The Left

337 Pages·1970·7.164 MB·English

by  Laslett, John

LABOR AND THE LEFT

LABOR
AND THE
LEFT
A Study of Socialist and
Radical Influences in the American
Labor Movement, 1881-1924
JOHN H. M. LASLETT
BASIC BOOKS, Inc., Publishers (cid:127) New York (cid:127) London
For my Mother
AND IN MEMORY OF
my Father
©1970 by Basic Books, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-1 10774
SBN 465-03742-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
PREFACE
For help at various stages during the preparation of this manuscript
I should like to thank the George W. Ochs-Oakes Senior Scholarship Fund,
the Department of History at Northwestern University, the British Associa-
tion for American Studies, and the Provost and Fellows of The Queen’s
College, Oxford, without whose financial support the study would not
have been written. I am also grateful for the advice of my research super-
visor, Dr. Henry Pelling, now of Cambridge University, and for a Willett
Award from the College of the University of Chicago in 1965.
Numerous trade-unions, research libraries, and other institutions gave
me their help during the course of my research. I should like to acknowledge,
in particular, the facilities extended to me by the Wisconsin State Historical
Society, the Midwest Inter-Library Center, the afl-cio, the Tamiment In-
stitute, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Illinois
State Historical Society, and the U.S. Department of Labor. Manuscript
collections and labor newspapers were also consulted at Duke University,
Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, the University of
Louisville, the University of Colorado, the University of Illinois Historical
Survey, and the Catholic University of America. In addition, my thanks go
to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Boot and Shoe
Workers Union, the International Association of Machinists, and the United
Mine Workers of America for permitting me to make use of their libraries
and archives.
v
Preface | vi
Various friends and colleagues at the University of Chicago and elsewhere
read portions of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their advice.
Among them were Joel Seidman, Herbert Gutman, Melvyn Dubofsky,
Henry Bedford, Mark Perlman, Nuala McGann Drescher, Lee Cary, Grant
McConnell, David Greenstone, Arthur Mann, and Fred Jaher.
My greatest debt is to my wife, whose patience during the writing of
this manuscript was greater than I deserved.
It should be added that the manuscript was completed in the summer of
1968 but could not be published until 1970.
John H. M. Laslett
CONTENTS
1 Introduction 3
2 Marxist Socialism and the German Brewery Workers of
the Midwest 9
3 DeLeonite Socialism and the Irish Shoe Workers
of New England 54
4 Jewish Socialism and the Ladies Garment Workers
of New York 98
5 Populism, Socialism, and the International Association
of Machinists 1 44
6 Socialism, Industrial Unionism, and the United Mine
Workers of America 1 92
7 Syndicalist Socialism and the Western Federation
of Miners 241
8 Conclusion 287
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UNPUBLISHED SOURCES 309
INDEX 315

LABOR AND THE LEFT