Priscilla Murolo - From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States

FROM THE FOLKS

WHO BROUGHT YOU

THE WEEKEND

2001 by Priscilla Murolo, A. B. Chitty, and Joe Sacco.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2001
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York

Designed by Kathryn Parise

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Murolo, Priscilla.

From the folks who brought you the weekend: a short, illustrated history
of labor in the United States / Priscilla Murolo and A. B. Chitty;
illustrated by Joe Sacco.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-5955-8856-2
1. LaborUnited StatesHistory. 2. Working classUnited StatesHistory. 3. Labor movementUnited StatesHistory.
I. Chitty, A. B. II. Title.
HD8066 .M86 2001
331'.0973dc21 2001030978

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2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

For David, Marty,
and Meridith

CONTENTS

FOREWORD AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Why this book now? For two reasons, mainly. When we started this project in 1998, no comprehensive survey of U.S. labor history for the general reader had appeared for more than a decade. Recent scholarship had added new dimensions and many details to the story of working people in America. It was past time to compile these insights into a new general history.

Also, the labor movement itself had changedmost dramatically in the 1995 election of the New Voice slate to the leadership of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. This change reflected a belated recognition that the labor-government-management accord achieved after the Second World War had already been scuttled by both corporations and government, that without reorientation to new economic and political realities unions and the federation itself could become as irrelevant as any boss or banker might wish, and just wither away. Compared to the men they succeeded, the new generation of leaders had different ideas about the role of organized labor in society. These ideas are not new: They are revivals and developments of labor traditions that had long been subordinated to the demands of the scuttled accord of the Cold War era. It was a good time to look again at these traditions.

As we began drafting the story, a third reason appeared and became clearer as we continued. Even a casual look at American history reveals how much of what we learn and teach in school is just not true. Sometimes these misreadings are errors of factthe extent of the U.S. war in the Philippines at the turn of the last century is one example. More often they are errors of omissionthe African American role in the Civil War, for example. Mostly they concern perspective: Looking at historical events from the bottom up alters our understanding of historical agency and causation. Adopting the perspective of people organizing to achieve common goals gives an account of historical events that is truer, and surely more useful.

Compared to conventional labor history, we tried mainly to be more inclusive in terms of workers and working peoples movements, and to incorporate as much recent research, historiography, and events as we could. Almost none of the material comes from our own research. We found an abundance of materialsin fact, too much. To keep the narrative from expanding beyond our publishers mandate, or our control, we had to exclude more than we could include at every turn. There are some interesting books we did not write. We did not write a comprehensive account of trade unions, their internal affairs, or their complicated relationships with one another in and out of federations. We did not write a history of work, nor a history of labor and capital. We did not write a history of labor politics. These would be good and useful books. We also tried to keep from straying too far into major reinterpretations of American history, perhaps with mixed results. That would be a great book too, but beyond our ambition, and probably our competence.

Besides, for us the significance of the past is found in the present, and the present moment is full of rapid changes, even surprises. We are hopeful for the future, but certain of very little. We do know that in the past people have always found a way to struggle to make life better for themselves and their posterity. We know their struggles have generally been effective in proportion to the range and depth of the solidarity of their movements. We know the incessant and implacable adversary is privilege, legitimated by law, custom, and popular ideology, which never yields without challenge, to which democracy is anathema. We side with democracy. We write for the people who work too hard for too little, whose families and communities are hostage to the greed and arrogance of the same privilege that deforms our humanity and threatens our common welfare. We write for the people who can change history.

Our debts to historians and activists are too numerous to list. Our publisher, Andr Schiffrin and The New Press, and our editors, first Matt Weiland, then Marc Favreau, encouraged our work. Copyediting by David Allen helped to reconcile inconsistencies and force clarification. A Flik grant from Sarah Lawrence College gave Priscilla some money for travel. Feedback from students in labor history courses at Sarah Lawrence, the Midwest Summer School for Women Workers, and summer workshops sponsored by Hospital and Health Care Workers District 1199 in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky sharpened the analysis and the narrative. Friends and comrades like Kim Scipes, David Cline, and Gideon Rosenbluth helped us at particular points. Without the intellectual, emotional, and logistical support of Mary Reynolds, Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Womens History at Sarah Lawrence College, this book most likely would never have appeared.

We dedicate this book to three people. David Montgomery has been our personal intellectual guide to American labor history. His life and work combine the long view with mastery of historical detail and with activism to a degree all too rare in the profession of history. Martel Montgomery, Davids wife, has been our good friend, steadfast and practical in seeing the possibility of change for the better, constant in her conviction that the principles by which we work for social justice apply with equal force to our everyday lives. Finally, our student and friend Meridith Helton learned labor history and then lived it, long enough at least to realize a personal dream working for the union victory at the Fieldcrest Cannon mills in North Carolina. She died too suddenly and too soon, leaving us with an indelible and fiery memory of beauty, youth, and energy, love of music, adventure, and life, and passion for justice. She and her generation carry our hopes and quiet our fears. They have already started making our history.