Synopses & Reviews
This book examines how it was possible and what it meant for ordinary factory workers to become effective unionists and national political participants by the mid-1930s. We follow Chicago workers as they make choices about whether to attend ethnic benefit society meetings or to go to the movies, whether to shop in local neighborhood stores or patronize the new A & P. Although workers may not have been political in traditional terms during the '20s, as they made daily decisions like these, they declared their loyalty in ways that would ultimately have political significance. As the depression worsened in the 1930s, not only did workers find their pay and working hours cut or eliminated, but the survival strategies they had developed during the 1920s were undermined. Looking elsewhere for help, workers adopted new ideological perspectives and overcame longstanding divisions among themselves to mount new kinds of collective action. Chicago workers' experiences as citizens, ethnics and blacks, wage earners and consumers all converged to make them into New Deal Democrats and CIO unionists. First printed in 1990, Making a New Deal has become an established classic in American History. The second edition includes a new introductory essay by Lizabeth Cohen.
Review
"The Work Ethic in Industrial America is a brilliant and morally acute examination of the rhetoric of work in the United States. Its republication is timely in two ways. Not only are work and the work ethic being again radically transformed, but so is historiography. Written just before intellectual and social history separated and diverged, this edition comes when these fields are reconvening. What a wonderful model it offers for future work!"
Review
“A delight to read.”
Synopsis
The phrase a strong work ethic” conjures images of hard-driving employees working diligently for long hours. But where did this ideal come from, and how has it been buffeted by changes in work itself? While seemingly rooted in Americas Puritan heritage, perceptions of work ethic have actually undergone multiple transformations over the centuries. And few eras saw a more radical shift in labor ideology than the American industrial age.
Daniel T. Rodgers masterfully explores the ways in which the eclipse of small-scale workshops by mechanized production and mass consumption triggered far-reaching shifts in perceptions of labor, leisure, and personal success. He also shows how the new work culture permeated society, including literature, politics, the emerging feminist movement, and the labor movement.
A staple of courses in the history of American labor and industrial society, Rodgerss sharp analysis is sure to find a new audience, as twenty-first-century workers face another shift brought about by technology. The Work Ethic in Industrial America 18501920 is a classic with critical relevance in todays volatile economic times.
About the Author
Daniel T. Rodgers
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Work Ideals and the Industrial Invasion
2. Hireling Laborer
3. “Mechanicalized” Men
4. Play, Repose, and Plenty
5. Splinterings: Fables for Boys
6. Sons of Toil: Industrial Workers and Their Labor
7. Idle Womanhood: Feminist Versions of the Work Ethic
8. The Political Uses of Work Rhetoric
Epilogue: Charles W. Eliot and the Quest for Joyful Labor
Notes
Index