Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939

by Lizabeth Cohen

• ISBN13: 9780521715355
• ISBN10: 0521715350
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-07
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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. As they made daily decisions like these, they declared their loyalty in ways that would ultimately have political significance. When the depression worsened in the 1930s, workers adopted new ideological perspectives and overcame longstanding divisions among themselves to mount new kinds of collective action. Chicago workers' experiences 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 preface by Lizabeth Cohen.

Author Biography

Lizabeth Cohen is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the history department of Harvard University

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
List of Tables	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Preface to the Second Edition	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Living and Working in Chicago in 1919	p. 11
Ethnicity in the New Era	p. 53
Encountering Mass Culture	p. 99
Contested Loyalty at the Workplace	p. 159
Adrift in the Great Depression	p. 213
Workers Make a New Deal	p. 251
Becoming a Union Rank and File	p. 291
Workers' Common Ground	p. 323
Conclusion	p. 361
Notes	p. 369
Index	p. 511
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.