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Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in History

Family Wages: The Roles Of Wives And Mothers In U.S. Working-Class Survival Strategies, 1880-1930, Ileen Devault Jan 2015

Family Wages: The Roles Of Wives And Mothers In U.S. Working-Class Survival Strategies, 1880-1930, Ileen Devault

Ileen A DeVault

The common image of a female wage earner in the U.S. in the decades around the turn of the 20th century is that of a young, single woman: the daughter of her family. However, the wives and mothers of these families also made important economic contributions to their families' economies. This paper argues that we need to rethink our evaluation of the economic roles played by ever-married women in working-class families. Using a range of government reports as well as IPUMS, I document three ways in which working-class wives and mothers strove to bring cash into their family units: through …


The Move From Protectionism To Outward-Looking Industrial Development: A Critical Juncture In Irish Industrial Policy?, Paul Donnelly, John Hogan Sep 2014

The Move From Protectionism To Outward-Looking Industrial Development: A Critical Juncture In Irish Industrial Policy?, Paul Donnelly, John Hogan

John Hogan

This paper utilises a new framework for examining critical junctures to help us understand whether the changes to Irish industrial policy at the end of the 1950s constituted a critical juncture, breaking cleanly with what came before, or were a continuation of policy pathways previously established. The framework is made up of three elements, which must be identified in sequence, for us to be able to declare a critical juncture. Irish industrial policy is examined here, as it constitutes a core tenet of wider economic policy.


This Was J. C. Penney: A Century Of Main Street Department Stores, David Kruger Sep 2013

This Was J. C. Penney: A Century Of Main Street Department Stores, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Talk given as invited plenary speaker, providing an overview of the boom and bust of Main Street department stores throughout Montana, with particular emphasis on James Cash Penney and his Golden Rule/JCPenney department store locations.


Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore Mar 2013

Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] This is a social biography of Eugene Victor Debs. It is a traditional biography in that it emphasizes this one individual's 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's 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 …


Deeply Within: Catholicism, Faith And History, Nick Salvatore Mar 2013

Deeply Within: Catholicism, Faith And History, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] In the decade I spent living with Gene Debs, I thought much about faith's relation to intellect, especially in the political realm. It was not just that a socialist in capitalist America needed faith but rather that Debs's very vision of America's promise was itself a profound act of faith. But with the exception of the last chapter, which I titled, "A Species of Purging," following a phrase in one of Debs's prison letters, overt discussion of any religious sensibility was largely sotto voce, echoes of a private dialogue with myself. Pleased as I was with the book when …


The Effectiveness Of Reinstatement As A Public Policy Remedy: The Kohler Case, John Drotning, David Lipsky Mar 2013

The Effectiveness Of Reinstatement As A Public Policy Remedy: The Kohler Case, John Drotning, David Lipsky

David B Lipsky

This article is concerned with two aspects of the NLRB reinstatement remedy as applied in the famous Kohler case: (1) how effective the remedy was, particularly in terms of the number of employees who returned to Kohler under its protection, and (2) what factors, in order of significance, affected a worker's decision to return. The authors find the remedy was effective, since about 40 percent of those workers who received reinstatement offers accepted them. Regression and discriminant analyses of the variables affecting the decision to return confirm the thinking of labor market economists that the most disadvantaged worker (lower paid, …


Two Tales Of A City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia, Nick Salvatore Aug 2012

Two Tales Of A City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[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's 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's 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. …


Workers, Racism And History: A Response, Nick Salvatore Jul 2012

Workers, Racism And History: A Response, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] This intimate dependence of white egalitarianism upon black exclusion forms the central theme of Herbert Hill's 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's 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, …


[Review Of The Book Icons Of Democracy: American Leaders As Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters And Democrats], Nick Salvatore Jul 2012

[Review Of The Book Icons Of Democracy: American Leaders As Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters And Democrats], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] Icons of Democracy is a welcome change from the rather arid, often quantified analyses of political leadership so prevalent in academic writing. Well read in both primary and secondary sources, Miroff has deeply grounded his ideas in the rich historical context. In addition, he carefully chose his subjects and drew from their experiences central themes which, in divergent fashion, they also held in common. The resulting collective biography engages and challenges the reader. While partial to leaders in the dissenting tradition (they are "our true subversives and at times our truest democrats"), Miroff consistently points to the complexity of …


[Review Of The Book Making A New Deal: Industrial Workers In Chicago, 1919-1939], Nick Salvatore Jun 2012

[Review Of The Book Making A New Deal: Industrial Workers In Chicago, 1919-1939], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] This is a superb book. Lizabeth Cohen has attempted nothing less than a major reinterpretation of how industrial workers became deeply involved with the union organizing drives of the 1930s. Rather than focusing on external stimuli such as governmental actions, Cohen explores in great detail the ways in which changes in working people's own attitudes allowed them to be participants in, indeed makers of, their New Deal. Her themes are critically important, broadly conceived, and explored with imagination and verve. Her extensive research matches her intellectual vision, and she sensitively uses such diverse sources as advertising agency memoranda, early …


Introduction To Seventy Years Of Life And Labor: An Autobiography, Nick Salvatore Jun 2012

Introduction To Seventy Years Of Life And Labor: An Autobiography, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] Samuel Gompers remains a central figure in American history during the society's most intense capital development. The choices he made from the possibilities he perceived were of great importance at the time and still influence the organization he founded. Despite his many achievements, however, the larger aspects of the qualities of his leadership remained weak. In his search for acceptance, he jettisoned the vision of working class unity that had motivated him in the 1870s and 1880s. The K of L slogan, that "an injury to one is the concern of all," Gompers dismissed, a casualty of the polemics …


Political Will, Local Union Transformation, And The Organizing Imperative, Bill Fletcher, Richard Hurd Aug 2010

Political Will, Local Union Transformation, And The Organizing Imperative, Bill Fletcher, Richard Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] As part of its ongoing commitment, SEIU has devoted increasing attention to the challenge of getting local unions to embrace organizing and to allocate sufficient resources to the task. In this context, the unions 1992 national convention adopted two key resolutions: one to affirm the centrality of organizing, the second to assist leadership development with targeted educational programs. In the months following the convention, a discussion unfolded among national staff regarding appropriate steps required to assist local union leaders committed to change. Although internal organizing and initiatives to develop leadership skills among women and people of color were encouraged, …


Why I Quit The Railroad, Linda Niemann Sep 2006

Why I Quit The Railroad, Linda Niemann

Linda G. Niemann

The article presents the author's reasons for leaving her job in the railroad industry. She wasn't thrilled to be force-assigned to the foreman's spot on Union Pacific's Lawrence switcher. Being the junior switchman on the California coast for years, she was used to jobs that weren't so plum. What made it tough were a difficult yardmaster and her help, a switchman who outranked her but didn't want the responsibility of the foreman's spot.


The Lord Of The Night, Linda Niemann Aug 2006

The Lord Of The Night, Linda Niemann

Linda G. Niemann

The article presents the author's reflection on the management of Southern Pacific after it was acquired by Union Pacific (UP). The year preceding the UP merger, 1995, everyone tried to earn the maximum they could in preparation for whatever union-negotiated guarantee would come down the pike. Downsizing hit this system hard. The union contract did away with the system seniority that provided trainmen the freedom to work anywhere on the railroad.