Synopses & Reviews
Review
Solidarity or Survival? is on firmest ground when it discusses the American Federation of Labour and the movement for a literacy test and then a quota system to restrict eastern and southern European immigration. A careful analysis, and the book's best chapter, reveals that it was a much-divided AFL which endorsed a literacy test for immigrants in 1897. In addition, Lane convincingly describes how `political, economic, and demographic conditions' between 1904 and 1906 eroded the liberal position on immigration restrictions and contributed heavily to labour unity on the issue.... Lane offers a well-written, generally thoughtful view of US labour's attitudes towards immigration over a century.... His account of the ideology of the early labour movement is useful even if the idea of fraternity or solidarity is not always evident.The International History Review
About the Author
A.T..LANE isesecturer in History in the School of European Studies at the University of Bradford in England.
Table of Contents
Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Atrisans, Ideology, and Nativism in Pre-Civil War American
The Developing Response of Urban Labor to Immigration, 1860-1873
The Knights of Labor and Solidarity
The American Federation of Labor, Induced Immigration, and the Literacy Test
Labor and Immigration in the 1890s: A Reassessment
The Undermining of Solidarity in the Labor Movement, 1880-1914
Labor's Debate on Immigration: Restrictionists versus Internationlists
1900-1917: The Turning Point in Labor's Immigration Policy
The Eclipse of Solidarity, 1917-1924
Conclusion
Bibliographical Essay
Index