Synopses & Reviews
A classic piece of Old Left scholarship made available to a new generation of students and activistsBernard Mandel's classic study provides a concise overview of the relationship between organized abolitionism and the fledgling labor movement in the period before the Civil War. Mandel argues that slavery reinforced the powerlessness of white workers North and South, and the racial divisions that it upheld rendered effective labor solidarity impossible. Deep distrust between abolitionists and the working classes, however, compelled Northern workers to find their own way into the antislavery ranks.
Review
"This edition will bring historians' attention back to a great but no longer known work from the past. Brian Kelly's excellent introduction provides a biography of Mandel, places his book in the context of writings on U.S. history, and presents the critique of whiteness studies implicit in Mandel's thought in a clear and provocative fashion."
--David Montgomery, author of Fall of the House of Labor
Review
"The University of Illinois Press has served readers well by republishing Labor, Free and Slave. It has brought this important book back into the dialog about mid-19th century American history."--Science and Society
About the Author
Bernard Mandel was an independent scholar who also published a biography of Samuel Gompers. Brian Kelly is a senior lecturer in the School of History at Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland. He is the author of Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-1921.