About this title: This book examines how it was possible and what it meant for ordinary factory workers to become effective unionists and national political participants by the mid-1930s. We follow Chicago workers as they make choices about whether to attend ethnic benefit society meetings or to go to the movies, whether to shop in local neighborhood stores or ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: Later Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr, West Nyack, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780521428385ISBN:0521428386
Description: Very Good/Not Issued. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall 0-521-42838-6 Scholarly Book Pictoriaal softcover. 8vo measuring 9 by 6 inches. It is 526pp including index. Illustrated with b/w photos. "detailed portrait of working-class life in the 1920's and 1930's" read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780521428385ISBN:0521428386
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Has moderate markings with pencil. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 544 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"The rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, can be attributed to the changing attitudes and actions of industrial workers. Previously, historians have given more credit to the rise of the state and new union organizations and their leaders. 1920s laborers in Chicago were ethnically diverse. Ethnic elites and paternalistic employers created a security net for workers. The Great Depression severed these loyalties. Workers now turned to the democratic party-a clear example of mass media's influence in stifling parochialism and making these issues, and loyalties, national. These new alliances came, in part, because the laboring class was becoming homogenized. By the mid-1930s, workers shared much in common, in part because of cultural trends, the decline of ethnic institutions. New CIO unions worked hard to heighten workers' common ground to create a "culture of unity."
Cohen's years of investigation are telling. In 1919, the government was likely to side with business, and not labor, in part because they feared the radicalism of labor unions. Cohen's examination also questions the homogenization of all citizens in urban areas. Most scholars find this as a time in which identity was becoming nation; Cohen finds that localized, ethnic neighborhoods remained the norm in the mid-1920s. It took the Great Depression to change that reality. Mass media, such as radio, did not necessarily break down traditional, ethnic loyalties either-in fact, it could reinforce them. But radio, movies and other forms of mass consumption did not expose all people to new cultural experience. They were, in a sense, practicing the politics of consumption as early as the 1920s.
It was working class culture that caused the rise of industrial unionism and worker politics in Chicago in 1930s. Before then, ethnic and racial divisions prevented effective working-class action. Industries recognized the importance of ethnicity and used it to assuage workers unions. Welfare capitalism, which included wage incentives, recreations programs, and workers' councils, was industry's attempt to placate unionizing workers. By mixing ethnicity in, for example, workers' councils, industries believed they could divide, and not cohere, union members. This backfired. Their arguments that capitalism could be moral (a clear struggle against socialist movements) only led the way for 1930s liberalism and reform. During the 1920s, however, encroaching outsiders broke down ethnic identifications. The Catholic church is one example; it replaced ethnic parishes with English speaking parishes. Large corporations too attracted workers' allegiances. National networks soon drove out ethnic radio stations and theaters. In time, mass culture broke down ethnic barriers. They used "mass culture to create a second-generation ethnic, working-class culture that preserved the boundaries between themselves and others." (147) these workers, faced with the great depression, thus made a new deal."
"in the tradition of new labor history i.e. ep thompson and gutman, cohen tells a story of industrial workers who overcame their fragmented ethnic/racial enclaves to rally around class demands. she argues that they formed a social vision ('moral capitalism') based on the welfare capital projects of the 20's and, without awareness of how powerful they were, largely recreated the world around them, especially with regards to the state, from the power of rag-tag informal work group actions, which were eventually absorbed into the CIO."
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