In this course we will explore wage and slave labor in the U.S. from the American Revolution until recent times and put that subject in a world context. We will consider how the nature of work has changed during that era and the different kinds of people who have labored in this country, including native-born Americans, slaves, and immigrants from around the globe. We will look for changes and continuities in the American labor movement and discuss how employers, government, and middle-class reformers have viewed workers, unions, and strikes. We will analyze the influence of ethnicity, religion, and gender in American labor history.
We also will compare standards of living between American workers and those in other countries over time. And we will consider why socialist movements and labor parties have been much weaker in the U.S. than elsewhere, even though American workers have often been more militant in confronting employers. In addition, we will see how intellectuals have interpreted American labor history.
The organizing theme will be an idea advanced by the political scientist Aristide Zolberg a quarter century ago, that "the most distinctive feature" of American labor history in the 19th century and even later was "the orientation of workers qua citizens overwhelmingly toward the political mainstream." |