Culture of Misfortune: An Interpretive History of Textile Unionism in the United Statesстатья из журнала
Аннотация: The problem child of the labor movement, textile unionism in the United States has been plagued by a history of failures. Workers have faced a chronically volatile industry located in two distinct regions, one of which—the South—had a reputation for “virulent” anti-unionism. To add to the difficulties, the cultures of northern and southern textile workers have been so different that it has been difficult for the latter to unite. While there is no dearth of attempts to explain textile unionism's fortunes in either region, few have examined the fortunes of textile unionism from a national perspective. Clete Daniel's institutional history does this, and this alone makes the book a noteworthy achievement. His research contributes to an important historiographic objective: a comprehensive assessment of the relative importance of industry structure, worker culture, political climate, and institutional leadership in determining textile unionism's success or failure. Using union records and oral histories, Daniel studies the succession of unions that attempted to organize textile workers, especially the United Textile Workers (UTW) and the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA). He documents the frustrations of early-twentieth-century union leaders faced with fiercely independent and exclusive craft enclaves in northern textiles. These centrifugal forces frustrated the national union's efforts to acquire either funds or authority and shaped the subsequent desire of union leaders to establish firm centralized control. Indeed, Daniel's documentation of the precarious financial status of both the UTW and the TWUA is a major contribution to our understanding of the second-class status that textile unions had within the AFL (American Federation of Labor) and the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).
Год издания: 2002
Авторы: Janet Irons, Clete Daniel
Издательство: Oxford University Press
Источник: Journal of American History
Ключевые слова: Labor Movements and Unions
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 89
Выпуск: 2
Страницы: 684–684