Leon Fink

So much for Rebecca Edwards etal. and the Long Progressive Era. Fink reminds us that the economic system of the Gilded Age was hotly contested ground between labor and management. Their struggles shaped the socio-economic system as it emerged. He makes a case for contingency in that outcomes could have varied. In my humble opinion, Fink's workers had much more of a fighting chance than say those that Steven Fraser depicts in The Age of Acquiescence (2015). Fink also shines an international show more perspective on the era, and makes the case that labor would have benefited from doing so as well. For example, he argues that during the Homestead strike, American workers should have sought allies with British unions. Denying Andrew Carnegie his respectable safe haven in Skibbo Castle and applying public pressure on him in Great Britain could have yielded positive results. This is just one example of Fink's use of contingency that will surely generate thought. show less

A good review, but not complete.