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Writing the "Labor Question" Back into History

Writing the "Labor Question" Back into History Page 207 (RE)VIEWS Kitty Krupat Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. The title of Nelson Lichtenstein’s latest book promises a sweeping epic but delivers something more manageable. In State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, Lichtenstein reflects on twentieth-century trade unionism and its relationship to American democracy. His jumping-off point is the “labor question,” first defined by Progressive Era reformers. He examines its place in the American imagination, tracing its rise, decline, and near eclipse in the last decades of the century. He contends that democracy has been at its most vibrant and effective when (as in the New Deal period) the labor question was most central to the social and political discourse of the nation. In such moments as well, he says, the labor movement has been at its most dynamic, precisely because the project of organizing and collective bargaining were linked to broader struggles for social and political justice. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the labor question had slipped from view (or was erased from the picture). This erasure had a debilitating effect not only on organized labor but also http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Radical History Review Duke University Press

Writing the "Labor Question" Back into History

Radical History Review , Volume 2004 (88) – Jan 1, 2004

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2004 by MARHO: The Radical Historians' Organization, Inc.
ISSN
0163-6545
eISSN
1534-1453
DOI
10.1215/01636545-2004-88-207
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Page 207 (RE)VIEWS Kitty Krupat Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. The title of Nelson Lichtenstein’s latest book promises a sweeping epic but delivers something more manageable. In State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, Lichtenstein reflects on twentieth-century trade unionism and its relationship to American democracy. His jumping-off point is the “labor question,” first defined by Progressive Era reformers. He examines its place in the American imagination, tracing its rise, decline, and near eclipse in the last decades of the century. He contends that democracy has been at its most vibrant and effective when (as in the New Deal period) the labor question was most central to the social and political discourse of the nation. In such moments as well, he says, the labor movement has been at its most dynamic, precisely because the project of organizing and collective bargaining were linked to broader struggles for social and political justice. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the labor question had slipped from view (or was erased from the picture). This erasure had a debilitating effect not only on organized labor but also

Journal

Radical History ReviewDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2004

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