Response to Sean Wilentz, Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor Movement, 1790-1920

[Excerpt] Wilentz\u27s critique of the exceptionalist theme in American historiography is to the point. Whether one applauded the absence of feudalism, and therefore class conflict, in America with the historians of the 1950s or bemoaned that liberal democratic tradition as the nail in the coffin of class consciousness in the 1970s, either interpretative structure sacrifices empirical evidence for grand theory. In the former, the careers of Thomas Skidmore or Ira Stewart are all but incomprehensible; in the latter, men like Joseph R. Buchanan or Eugene V. Debs have little relevance. More importantly, the actual experience of the majority of American working people is either lost or misunderstood. For as Wilentz sharply delineates, the fact that American workers did not largely espouse an a priori notion of class did not mean that they either embraced the ideology of their employers or were defenseless, in the political culture, when confronted by the demands of those same employers on the shop floor. In exploring the continued power of America\u27s democratic revolutionary heritage for working people in the generations following 1776, Wilentz emphasizes a central concern of many workers that, the evidence would suggest, structured much of their response to industrial capitalism

[Review of the Book \u3ci\u3ePerspectives on American Labor History: The Problems of Synthesis\u3c/i\u3e]

[Excerpt] Over the past two decades many claims have been made for what was once called the new labor history. Deeply influenced by European scholarship (especially by the British historian, E. P. Thompson) and by writings in cultural anthropology and sociology, this new history seemed to sweep all before it. In a tumble of discrete community studies and precise examinations of individual strikes lay the foundation of the new history\u27s critique of the work of John K Commons and his associates, who had stressed an institutional analysis of labor\u27s growth and development within a liberal, democratic capitalist society. In studying workers outside the labor movement, in exploring their cultures and values, and in asserting the presence of explicit class tension, these works proclaimed, collectively, a new era in the study of the American working class

Two Tales of a City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia

[Excerpt] In the tension between Forging Freedom and Roots of Violence certain themes present themselves for further research and thought. Neither volume successfully analyzes the historical roots of the African-American class structure. This is especially evident in each book\u27s treatment of the black middling orders. While neither defines the category with clarity, their basic assumption that small shopkeepers and regularly employed workers were critical to the community\u27s ability to withstand some of the worst shocks of racism is important. The clash between these books also raises questions concerning the role of pre-industrial cultural values in the transition to industrial capitalism. Nash notes, and then fails to explore, the significance of black exclusion from industrial life; Lane, however, is quite clear that to be excluded from that transition, despite the pains inclusion brought, is to remain in a position of profound disadvantage. The work of Lane and William Julius Wilson suggests avenues for both historical and contemporary exploration of the economic and cultural effects of this exclusion. In addition, Lane\u27s argument has a particular implication for the writing of nineteenth-century white working-class history as well. It would lend support to the suggestions of Richard Stott and others that we need to be more rigorous in appreciating both the cultural and social values of the pre-industrial world and the specific relevance of those values to industrial society. Finally, there is the central tension between these two books, one that revolves around their respective visions of nineteenth-century African-American urban culture. While neither argument is fully convincing, the structure of Roger Lane\u27s analysis, if not always its development, suggests an important direction for future work. Not to explore these issues historically is to continue the timidity Wilson so sharply criticized in contemporary policy debates. As in so many other areas, it was W.E.B. DuBois who pointed the way when he wrote, in 1899, that we must study, we must investigate, we must attempt to solve; and the utmost that the world can demand is, not lack of human interest and moral conviction, but rather the heart-quality of fairness, and an earnest desire for the truth despite its possible unpleasantness

Biography and Social History: An Intimate Relationship

Biography has been considered as outside the discipline of history by many historians. Since the chronological framework of the study is pre-deter-mined, given the subject\u27s life, it has been argued, it does not meet the fundamental historical test of analyzing historical change across time. Others, particularly literary critics, have suggested that the biographical emphasis on the personal is itself, at root, invalid. This comment instead suggests that the recent turn to biography in labor and social history is most welcome, for it creates the possibility of a broader understanding of the interplay between an individual and social forces beyond one\u27s ability to control. But to write a social biography demands a disciplinary rigor and thorough research effort that treats equally seriously both the subject and the context that shapes that life

Introduction to \u3ci\u3eWe All Got History: The Memory Books of Amos Webber\u3c/i\u3e

[Excerpt] Who was this Amos Webber who assumed such a prominent role in this public, regional celebration of the black presence in American life? That he was a veteran was clear, but that alone did not account for his prominent position in that day\u27s events. Certainly James Monroe Trotter, the eminent musician, author, and politician, William H. Carney, and William Dupree were all more widely known in the black North. How did a man such as Amos Webber, unknown beyond his own circle, the recipient of no awards or editorials in the local or national press, achieve such prominence in May 1886? Was this an extraordinary moment whose shining aura all but obliterated the previous sixty years of common routines? Or did his involvement that May reflect a singular role, but one that emerged from and reflected a lifetime of organizational activism and public political commitment? In the biography that follows, I have tried to explore as many of those clues as possible. In the process I have come to see that, for all of his lack of national renown, Amos Webber was a lifelong activist among the black residents he lived with in both Philadelphia and Worcester. His public commitments reflected a moral vision that insisted on both individual rectitude and social justice. Over time he claimed as his own a very specific understanding of what it meant to be an American. With fellow blacks he rescued fugitives, fought Confederates, and demanded full civil and political rights. With them he built institutions designed to provide internal structure and direction for a black population confronted with frequent, intense antagonism from whites. It was also in this collective setting that Webber struggled to understand the persistent, complex pain inherent in being both black and American

Introduction to \u3ci\u3eEugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist\u3c/i\u3e

[Excerpt] This is a social biography of Eugene Victor Debs. It is a traditional biography in that it emphasizes this one individual\u27s personal and public life as far as the evidence allows. But the book is also a piece of social history that assumes individuals do not stand outside the culture and society they grew in and from. I have stressed each aspect of Debs\u27s story in order to present both the importance of the man and a more complete picture of the political and cultural struggles his society engaged in during his lifetime. Neither in his time nor in ours would Debs stand as an architect of a specific program for the future. His talents were unsuited to such an approach and to that extent limited him. But his life and those of his comrades in the labor and Socialist movements have a far broader significance. The issues first raised in the transition to an industrial capitalist society are not yet resolved. The value of the individual in a corporate-dominated society; the meaning of work in a technological environment geared primarily for profits; and the importance of citizenship amid widespread malaise brought on in large part by the manipulative practices of political leaders—all these are questions of vital concern today. Eugene Victor Debs cannot speak directly to our present; the contexts are not identical. But a study of his life does suggest that the moral and political values this preeminent native son embodied shed light on the past and are still instructive today

[Review of the Book \u3ci\u3eThe CIO, 1935-1955\u3c/i\u3e]

[Excerpt] Labor\u27s upsurge in the 1930s remains for many even in our own time a source of inspiration and uplift. Those who are romantically inclined have long cherished the image of union militancy that attaches to that decade, a militancy that many have longed to see revived in recent years. Some contemporary union activists and their supporters, with more than a touch of a similar romanticism, frequently promote the claim that as the anti-union 1920s preceded the 1930s militancy, so too would the anti-union Reagan years give way to rekindled worker activism. Scholars as well have been influenced by this central image of progressive and mobilized labor on the march (the phrase with which Edward Levinson entitled his 1938 book). Many an important history has explored aspects of those struggles with insight, even if most writing in this vein must ultimately stress a militancy betrayed, opportunities lost, or working-class interests smothered by opportunistic labor leaders, vicious employers, and government bureaucrats alike. It is a testimony to the power of this symbol that six decades after the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)-the premier labor institution established during the 1930s to foster industrial unionism-it still retains significant appeal. Yet few have subjected it to a searching analysis. Melvyn Dubofsky\u27s 1979 article (in the journal Amerikastudien), with its provocative evocation of the not so turbulent Thirties, was, until recently, the exception. Nor has any historian attempted to understand the whole of the CIO\u27s institutional life, from its inception in those glory years down through its merger with its erstwhile implacable foe, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), in 1955. To write such a broad history is the task Robert H. Zieger undertakes in this book. Although there are grounds for disagreement and debate, Zieger has written a book of serious scholarship, based on a career-long immersion in archival and secondary sources, a book, moreover, that is replete with new insights, sound judgments, and a solid interpretative framework. It will serve as the standard interpretation for decades to come

Introduction to \u3ci\u3eFaith and the Historian: Catholic Perspectives\u3c/i\u3e

[Excerpt] What follows are the essays by eight historians touched by Catholicism on the meaning of that experience and its effect on their professional work. The essays are presented in broad chronological order, organized more by generational cohort than by specific date of birth. The essays are reflections, in some cases even meditations, and were never intended to conform to the structure and methodology of the historical article for a professional journal. Still, we have tried to shed some light on the inner processes that create that very work

Workers, Racism and History: A Response

[Excerpt] This intimate dependence of white egalitarianism upon black exclusion forms the central theme of Herbert Hill\u27s essay. Arguing that this condition is neither episodic nor solely of historical interest, Hill asserts that these racist attitudes (and the action that flowed from them) were systemic across two centuries of working class development and actually provide the central continuous rational for understanding institutional trade union activity from the early nineteenth century into the present. America\u27s labor unions. Hill writes, are the institutional expression of white working class racism, and of policies and practices that resulted in unequal access, dependent on race, to employment and union membership. (p. 31) In Hill\u27s perception, as in that of A Colored Philadelphian in 1830, the opposition of white workers to class categories based upon unnatural and artificial distinctions, independent of merit collapses when confronted with a caste system based on racial prejudice. This understanding is essential if one is to comprehend much in both labor\u27s past and present. How else to understand those radicalized workers in the American Railway Union who, in the midst of their monumental struggle with the Pullman Corporation in 1894, proudly boasted of their commitment to that egalitarian tradition by publicizing the fact that their convention delegates vetoed union president Eugene V. Debs\u27s motion that black workers be included in the movement. The rejection of even their leader\u27s motion, the union newspaper ingenuously asserted, confirmed for the rank and file their organization\u27s commitment to internal democratic procedures. This central perception in Hill\u27s essay reflects certain important aspects in recent American historiography. As Edmund Morgan has suggested in his stunning history of colonial Virginia, American Slavery, American Freedom, that juncture of slavery and freedom, defined by racial categories and intensified by class antagonisms, has its origins in the very core of the American experiment. As the nation developed, neither working people nor their institutions remained separate from that reality. Alexander Saxton also made that point quite clearly in his study of immigrant Chinese-white working class relations in California in the late ninetteenth century. A racist attitude, first formed in the context of black-white relations, dominated this encounter, Saxton argued, and to a great extent determined the structure, orientation and political vision of the California labor movement into the twentieth century. More recently Gwendolyn Mink has built upon these insights in examining the role of nativism and racism in structuring organized labor\u27s response to immigration restriction. In addition, she has argued, the racism evident in the legislative battles over immigration dominated organized labor\u27s search for a viable political alliance on the national level. Hill\u27s essay shares some of these insights yet its overall tone is nonetheless troublesome for at least three interrelated reasons. The essay is conceptually ahistorical, far too selective when it does use historical evidence and is ultimately more of a lawyer\u27s brief than a reasoned analysis

Faith, Politics, and American Culture [Review of the Books \u3ci\u3eLetter to a Christian Nation\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3ePity and Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eFaith and Politics: How the “Moral Values” Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eThe Compassionate Community: Ten Values to Unite America\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eRighteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement\u3c/i\u3e, and \u3ci\u3eBelievers: A Journey into Evangelical America\u3c/i\u3e]

[Excerpt] In January 2004, before a black church congregation in New Orleans, President George W. Bush commemorated Martin Luther King\u27s birthday with a spirited promotion of his faith-based initiatives. Appropriating the slain Civil Rights leader\u27s profession of faith, Bush proclaimed his ultimate purpose was to change America one heart, one soul, one conscience at a time. He emphasized voluntary action by citizens (four times he extolled them as the social entrepreneurs ) and he consistency denigrated the role of government but for one critical function: providing billions of dollars to faith-based social-service groups. Proclaiming the values of the Christian Bible as a universal handbook, the president preached — for he was in the pulpit that day — that faith-based programs only conform to one set of rules, and do not take inspiration ... from bureaucracy. Insisting that this policy was no threat to the Constitutional separation of church and state, Bush criticized Congress for its fear [of] faith-based programs that interface and save lives. The task, he acknowledged, was enormous: we\u27re changing a culture, he exclaimed, by harnessing the great strength of our country, which is the love of our citizens.“ The President\u27s language that day has worried many Americans, religious or not. Bush\u27s evangelical approach to public policy, to change (did he mean save?) hearts, souls, and consciences, and his disdain for governmental regulation in favor of a faith-guided oversight, led many to conclude that democracy\u27s Constitutional protections had been undermined. Following Bush\u27s re-election this concern intensified, reaching a crescendo in the months preceding the 2006 midterm elections. During that period at least twelve books appeared, written by non-academics for a popular audience, on the theme of contemporary religion and American political culture. Many received considerable attention, as the authors traveled the nation, signing books as they garnered local media coverage. These books, six of which are discussed in this essay, reveal the major contours of America\u27s debate over religion in political life