Labor's Untold Story
by Richard O. Boyer, Herbert M. Morais
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"Fundamentally, labor's story is the story of the American people. To view it narrowly, to concentrate on the history of specific trade unions or on the careers of individuals and their rivalries, would be to miss the point that the great forces which have swept the American people into action have been the very forces that have also molded labor. Trade unionism was born as an effective national movement amid the great convulsion of the Civil War and the fight for black freedom... Labor show more suffered under depressions which spurred the whole American people into movement in the seventies, in the eighties, and in the nineties. It reached its greatest heights when it joined hands with farmers, small businessmen, and the black people in the epic Populist revolts of the 1890's and later in the triumph that was the New Deal. For labor has never lived in isolation or progressed without allies. Always it has been in the main stream of American life,... Labor's story, by its very nature, is synchronized at every turn with the growth and development of American monopoly. Its great leap forward into industrial unionism was an answering action to the development of trusts and great industrial empires. Labor's grievances, in fact the very conditions of its life, have been imposed by its great antagonist, that combination of industrial and financial power often known as Wall Street. The mind and actions of William H. Sylvis, the iron molder who founded the first effective national labor organization, can scarcely be understood without also an understanding of the genius and cunning of his contemporary, John D. Rockefeller, father of the modern trust. In the long view of history the machinations of J. P. Morgan, merging banking and industrial capital as he threw together ever larger combinations of corporate power controlled by fewer and fewer men, may have governed the course of American labor more than the plans of Samuel Gompers." -- Amazon.com viewed January 11, 2021. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
You have to be careful when you read some history books. You have to read with caution, testing each paragraph, sometimes each sentence, to see if there might be some sort of agenda hidden amongst the author's prose. That's not a concern with this tome. Misters Boyer and Morais wear their agenda on their sleeves. Labor's Untold Story is the story of the labor movement from the left-wing point of view. J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and the Pinkerton Detective Agency are the bad guys; Gene Debs, Bill Haywood and the IWW are the heroes. The book covers the movement from the years immediately following the Civil War to the Eisenhower administration--the present day back when the book was first published. As a union member living a show more comfortable middle class American lifestyle, I read the book straddling the fence. I was a bit leery of rooting for the fervent socialists, even as I rejoiced over their occasional victories against the injustices perpetrated by the corporations and monopolists. But like any history written by the underdog, it is well worth reading, if for no other reason than to consider the well-known stories of history from a different perspective.
--J show less
--J show less
A history of the rise of labour unions. how and why they fought for things we take for granted today ( 8 hour work days, medical and retirement benifits etc. ) Can be dry reading in parts but very informative.
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Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Labor's Untold Story
- Original publication date
- 1955
- Epigraph
- “Be jubilant, my feet!”
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Statistics
- Members
- 318
- Popularity
- 100,200
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.82)
- Languages
- English, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
- ASINs
- 10
