Cross-Class Alliances And The Birth Of Modern Liberalism

Spanning the years 1865 to 1916 when the industrial revolution took hold, this book, one of the rare state level studies of labor and politics, explains how workers discarded outworn ideas and tactics and gradually moved toward social liberalism, a set of ideas simultaneously adopted by many in the middle class. The result was a long series of shifting cross-class alliances that won many labor reforms. The book delves into the world of the Central Labor Union and, contrary to the view that workers eschewed politics in favor of collective bargaining, convincingly demonstrates that workers were key players in the birth of modern liberal politics in the Progressive Era.