Synopses & Reviews
2020 Book of the Year • International Labor History Association
Honorable Mention • Philip Taft Labor History Prize
This rich history details the bitter, deep-rooted conflict between industrial behemoth International Harvester and the uniquely radical Farm Equipment Workers union. The Long Deep Grudge makes clear that class warfare has been, and remains, integral to the American experience, providing up-close-and-personal and long-view perspectives from both sides of the battle lines.
International Harvester — and the McCormick family that largely controlled it — garnered a reputation for bare-knuckled union-busting in the 1880s, but in the 20th century also pioneered sophisticated union-avoidance techniques that have since become standard corporate practice. On the other side the militant Farm Equipment Workers union, connected to the Communist Party, mounted a vociferous challenge to the cooperative ethos that came to define the American labor movement after World War II.
This evocative account, stretching back to the nineteenth century and carried through to the present, reads like a novel. Biographical sketches of McCormick family members, union officials and rank-and-file workers are woven into the narrative, along with anarchists, jazz musicians, Wall Street financiers, civil rights crusaders, and mob lawyers. It touches on pivotal moments and movements as wide-ranging as the Haymarket "riot," the Flint sit-down strikes, the Memorial Day Massacre, the McCarthy-era anti-communist purges, and America's late 20th-century industrial decline.
Both Harvester and the FE are now gone, but this largely forgotten clash helps explain the crisis of yawning inequality now facing US workers, and provides alternative models from the past that can instruct and inspire those engaged in radical, working class struggles today.
Review
“The Long Deep Grudge takes labor history to the barricades, where a small union deeply committed to class struggle on the job squares off against a corporate giant determined to enforce managerial prerogatives. This epic tale is also an entirely human-scale drama that brings to life multiple generations of radical labor leaders, rank-and-file workers, captains of industry, and public officials dedicated to the defense of private wealth. Though they won quite a few battles, the story’s s chief protagonists — communist organizers who founded the Farm Equipment Workers and unionized International Harvester when even John L. Lewis thought it couldn’t be done — ultimately lost the war, for reasons that go a long way to explain why the U.S. labor movement is so much weaker now than in was in the FE’s heyday. That labor liberals’ capitulation to anticommunism ultimately weakened unions comes across loud and clear, as does the folly of dependence on labor-management cooperation as opposed to the FE’s maxim that 'a strong picket line is the best negotiator.' More important, the FE’s history teaches by example that a union can punch far above its weight when members stand ready to come out swinging, not only because they’re angry at the boss but also for love of one another and an organization that truly belongs to them. For that alone, The Long Deep Grudge ought to be required reading for every labor activist in the United States.” Priscilla Murolo, co-author, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: An Illustrated History of Labor in the United States
Review
“Combining the expertise of a historian, detailed eye of a journalist, and flair of a novelist, Toni Gilpin breathes life into an important and fascinating story that, in lesser hands, could be as dull as dishwater. Gilpin aspires to tell no less a story that the epic battle between a corporate behemoth and the working-class radicals who — for decades — fought it tooth and nail. The plucky, interracial, leftist Farm Equipment workers union that sought to wrest control of the shop floor from the owners and managers of International Harvester is the story of America.” Peter Cole, author, Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area
Review
“Toni Gilpin’s The Long Deep Grudge is a remarkable accomplishment, which succeeds on multiple levels. The definitive history of an important but largely forgotten labor organization and its heroic struggles with an icon of industrial capitalism, this book is also a compelling and deeply moving reflection on the tragic history of radical industrial unionism in Twentieth Century America. It is essential reading for anyone who truly wishes to understand the history of labor and class struggle in this country.” Ahmed A. White, author, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America
About the Author
Toni Gilpin is a labor historian, activist and writer. She is a co-author of On Strike for Respect: The Clerical and Technical Workers' Strike at Yale University, and is the recipient of the 2018 Debra Bernhardt Award for Labor Journalism.