The Absence of Public Employee Unionism from US History

LaborHistory, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2002

EssayReviews

Where Are the OrganizedPublic Employees?The Absence ofPublic Employee Unionismfrom U.S. History Textbooks, andWhy It Matters

ROBERTSHAFFER

Whenmy 16-year-old sondecided to do a National History Day projecton the 1968 march onHarrisburg bythePennsylvania StateEducation Association that helpedwin collective bargaining rights for teachersand other public employeestwo years later, I didwhat any historian woulddo. I began toleaf through my U.S.history survey textbooks,in order toprovide him with background material onthe overall picture of thechanges in labor relations andthe union movement in the1960s and1970s. This background wouldserve as preparation for themore specialized secondaryliterature he wouldneed to look at onteacher unionism,and then for theprimary sourcematerials onthe March 4th demonstrationitself. As I surveyedthese textbooks I wasat rst surprised,and soon appalled, at theabsence in virtually all survey textbooks,as well as in textbooksof the recent (post-1945) U.S.,ofany mentionof the upsurge in public employee unionismin the1960s and1970s. This silenceserves all ofour students poorly, andre ects a lack ofperspective about what has beenone of the more important legacies ofthe 1960s tocontemporary life. * Numbersmake thecase for thesigni cance of the rise ofpublic employee unions,in both absoluteterms and in their increasedproportion ofunion membership asa whole. In 1955 public employee unionshad about 400,000 members in total; that gure rose 10-fold, toover 4,000,000, in the1970s. 1 Of course,this wasduring aperiod when public employment itself wasgrowing quickly, buteven so the percentage increase of unionization among government workersrose from 13% in 1960 to39% in 1976. 2 There werequick spurtsof growth during the1960s: theAmerican Federation of GovernmentEmployees (AFGE) more than doubledits membership in justtwo years, from 1967, whenit had 196,000 members,to 1969, whenit had 482,000 members. 3 The American Federation ofState, County, and Municipal Employees(AFSCME) grew from being the19th largest AFL-CIO unionin 1960 tobeing thesixth largest only adecadelater, in 1970. 4 The American Federation ofTeachers (AFT) addedonly

*SeeAppendix fora list ofU.S. history surveytextbooks reviewed for this study. 1Robert Zieger, American Workers,American Unions, 3rded. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1994), 163. 2SteveBabson, The Unnished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor,1877– Present (Lanham: Rowman and Littleeld, 1999),162. 3James Green, The Worldof the Worker:Labor in Twentieth-century America (NewYork: Hill and Wang, 1980),233– 234. 4SterlingSpero and John Capozzola, The UrbanCommunity andIts Unionized Bureaucracies: Pressure Politics in Local Government LaborRelations (NewYork: DunellenPublishing, 1973),19.

ISSN0023-656Xprint/ ISSN1469-9702online/ 02/030315–20 Ó 2002Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/0023656022000001805 316 RobertShaffer

20,000 members during the1950s, toreach 59,000 in 1960, butthen more than tripled its membership toover 200,000 during the1960s, whenit engaged in several high- prole strikes.It reached550,000 members in 1980. The National EducationAssoci- ation (NEA),which transformeditself during the1960s from aprofessional organization toa unionengaged in collective bargaining, already had 700,000 members in 1960, butgrew 50% by theend of the decade. 5 In the eldof higher education,in 1966 fewerthan adozencolleges or universities had signedcollective bargaining agreements.In 1975 over 400 institutionsof higher educationhad suchunion contracts, the great majority covering public schools.By 1974, faculty unions,led by theNEA, the AFT, andthe American Associationof University Professors,had signedagreements representing about 91,000 college and university faculty,or one-fth ofall full-time faculty members. 6 Unionmembership in theU.S. continuedto rise until theearly 1970s, andpublic employee unionsaccounted for mostof this growth in the1960s and1970s. 7 The opportunity for public employee unionsto arise wasrooted in major postwar transformations in American life. Thesechanges were at thecore of a dramatic increase in overall public sectoremployment. The numberof public employeesat all levels of government,5.5 million in 1946, more than doubledto 11.6 million in 1967. While onecan easily recognizethat thegrowth ofsuch federal programs asSocial Security, Medicare,and interstate highway constructioncontributed to growth in employment, by far thelargest share in this growth wasat thestate and local levels,in education, health care,welfare, sanitation, parks, andother programs. 8 LyndonJohnson’ s Great Societyprograms funneledmoney through local governments,helping facilitate therise ofthe AFSCME, in particular. 9 The baby boom,and growth ofthe numbers of high-school graduates andcollege studentsin the1950s and1960s, required far more teachersin thepublic schoolsand then in thepublic universities.Primary school enrollment soared50% between1950 and1960, from 20 million to30 million. Accordingto one account, in 1950 therewere 1 million college students,but 4 million adecadelater, and8 million in 1970, with mostof the increase in thepublic colleges anduniversities. 10

5MarjorieMurphy, BlackboardUnions: The AFTand the NEA, 1900–1980 (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press,1990), 277. 6Joseph Garbarino, Faculty Bargaining: Change andCon ict (NewYork: McGraw-Hill,1975), 4, 87; Faculty Bargaining in the Seventies ,ed. TerenceTice (Ann Arbor: Instituteof Continuing LegalEducation, 1973),243– 246; Frank Kemererand J.VictoryBaldridge, Unions on Campus (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 1975),1– 3; G.GregoryLozier and KennethMortimer, Anatomy ofa Collective Bargaining Election in Pennsylvania’s State-owned Colleges (UniversityPark: Centerfor the Study ofHigher Education, 1974), 33–38. For recentstudies of faculty unionism, seeGordon Arnold, The Politics ofFaculty Unionization: The Experience ofThree New England Universities (Westport: Berginand Garvey,2000) and Philo Hutcheson, AProfessional Professoriate:Unionization, Bureaucratization, andthe AAUP (Nashville: VanderbiltUniversity Press, 2000). 7Jack Barbash, “Unionsand Rights in the Space Age,”in The U.S.Department ofLabor “ History ofthe American Worker”, ed.Richard Morris(Washington: U.S. GovernmentPrinting Of ce, 1976),248– 269, at 261. 8These guresare from Zieger, American Workers,American Unions, 164,and aresimilar to those in IrvingBernstein, PromisesKept: John F.Kennedy’s New Frontier (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991),208, though Bernsteinuses slightly differentbeginning and endingdates for his comparison. 9Freemanet al., WhoBuilt America?, vol. 2, 598. 10Paul Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision: AHistory ofthe American People, 1sted. (Lexington:D. C.Heath, 1990),1027, 1081, 1087. Faragher et al., Out of Many,825,gives different gureson collegeenrollment, but the trendis clear: 2.6 million in 1950,3.2 million in 1960,and 7.5million in 1970.On the signicance Essay Reviews 317

Public employee unionsmaintained increasedmembership evenas rates in private sectorunions declined sharply after 1976. Unionmembership in manufacturing declinedfrom 27% in 1983 to18% adecadelater, with similar declinesin construction, transportation, andmining. Meanwhile,unionization rates in government remained at about 38% during this difcult decade for theU.S. labor movement,as compared to about 10% in theprivate sectoras a whole. 11 Putanother way,at thetime ofthe AFL-CIO merger in 1955, public employee unionsmade up only about 3% ofthe membership ofthe union federation. In 1991, by contrast,public employee unions comprisedover 20% ofAFL-CIO membership, approximately 2.9 million outof 14 million.12 By the1990s theNEA, whichremained outsideof the AFL-CIO, had becomethe largest unionin theU.S., with about 2million members—600,000 more members than thenext largest union,the Teamsters. 13 The consequencesof this rise in public employee unionismfor theU.S. labor movementgo beyondsimple numbers,however. Much of the increase in themember- ship,and leadership, ofwomen and of African Americans in trade unionshas occurred through public employee unions.Younger, independent, and innovative leadership in unionshas often come in themost recently organized sectors.In this way several public employee unionsin thelast 30 years have ledthe way in challenging businessas usual in theAFL-CIO. 14 In thehistoric 1995 defeatof the “ oldguard” AFL-CIO leadership, it wasthe growing numbersand power of the AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union(SEIU), which by the1990s weretwo of only fourAFL-CIO unionswith more than amillion members each,in combination with liberal industrial unionssuch as the Autoworkers and the Machinists, that allowed theelection of John Sweeneyover LaneKirkland. 15 Thus,knowledge of the growth in public employee unionismin the1960s is essentialto understanding trends in theunion movement since that time.

Footnote 10 continued ofthe growthof public institutions ofhigher education in the 1960sto facultyunionism, seeGarbarino, Faculty Bargaining, 1–4. 11Daniel Nelson, Shifting Fortunes: The Rise andDecline ofAmerican Labor,from the 1820sto the Present (Chicago: Ivan Dee,1997), 150– 151. 12Thesepercentages were derived from the gureson individual union membership and overall AFL-CIO membership provided in CourtneyGifford, Directory ofU.S. Labor Organizations, 1992–93 Edition (Washington: Bureauof National Affairs,1992), 57– 59. The guresfor public employeeunions includemainly the AFSCME, the AFGE, the AFT, the postal unions, and unions ofpolice of cers and re ghters,along with half ofthe membership ofthe ServiceEmployees International Union. Itdoesnot includethe portions ofthe Teamsters,Transport Workers,Laborers, and otherprimarily private sector unions which have organizedsome public employees. 13Gifford, Directory ofU.S. Labor Organizations, 42. 14Green,The Worldof the Worker, 233–235, Zieger, American Workers,American Unions, 164,and Ronald Filippelli, Laborin the USA:A History (NewYork: McGraw-Hill,1984), 271, all make thesepoints. Filippelli includesa prole of the AFSCME’s JerryWurf to demonstratethe greaterindependence of many public employeeunion leaders.One may notethat the AFT, dominated in averytop-down fashion by AlbertShanker from1974 to 1997,is in part an exceptionto this pattern. 15HaroldMeyerson, “ ASecondChance: TheNew AFL-CIO and the ProspectiveRevival ofAmerican Labor,” in Not Your Father’s Union Movement: Insidethe AFL-CIO, ed. Jo-Ann Mort(New York: Verso, 1998),1– 26, especially at 4, 8–9; Taylor Dark, “Debating Decline:The 1995 Race for the AFL-CIO Presidency,” LaborHistory 40(1999), 323–343, at 328,where Dark writes:“ AFSCME PresidentGerald McEnteewas perhaps the most important single gurebehind the effortto removeKirkland.” Approximately half ofthe SEIU’s members workin the public sector,and half in the private sector, accordingto Meyerson.Note, however,that the AFT, the AFGE, and the postal unions supported Kirkland, while the only othermajor public employeeunion to support Sweeneywas the Fireghters Association. 318 RobertShaffer

Attentionto changes in thelaws regarding public employee unionsin the1960s is also key tounderstanding the emergence of suchunionism and the long-term evolution ofU.S. labor law.The National Labor RelationsAct (NLRA) of 1935, sponsoredby SenatorRobert F.Wagner ofNew York, is, the basis of contemporary U.S.labor law, andall textbooksnote its signicance. But the NLRA explicitly excludedseveral categories ofemployees, including agricultural laborers, andpublic workersat all levels. Onecannot make senseof the rise in public employee unionismwithout noting PresidentKennedy’ s 1962 ExecutiveOrder 10988. The order provided for aprocedure for unionrecognition in thefederal sector,albeit with collective bargaining limited to non-wageissues and without the right tostrike. This opportunity, long soughtby the AFLand CIO, had beenthe subject of a bill introducedin theHouse of Representa- tives for over adecadeby GeorgeRhodes of Pennsylvania. Rhodeswas from thelabor stronghold ofReading, and had beena unionprinter andthen the editor ofa labor newspaper,the New Era,beforebeing electedto Congress. 16 Kennedy’s executiveorder paved theway for theexplosive growth oftheAFGE and thecontinued expansion of the postal unions.Executive Order 10988 also helpedset in motion aspectacularwave of debates about similar policies at thestate and local levels.These issues were among themost volatile in statepolitics in the1960s and 1970s. While only Wisconsinprovided for collective bargaining rights for public school teachersbefore Kennedy’ s executiveorder, by theend of the 1970s 29 stateshad such policies.Half ofthesestates enacted this legislation in theturbulent years from 1969 to 1971.17 Again, thereare larger issuesand trends at stakehere besides legislative history. Labor historian Irving Bernsteinhas recentlyargued that among JFK’s achievements wasthat he“ updatedthe New Deal,” and this executiveorder constitutesan important part ofhis case. 18 Oneneed not fully agree with Bernsteinto see the signi cance of this issuefor anevaluation ofKennedy’ s domesticpolicies. 19 Anevaluation ofKennedy’ s

16Thebest discussion of the backgroundand parametersof Executive Order 10988 is in IrvingBernstein, PromisesKept: John F.Kennedy’s New Frontier (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991), 204– 217. On the longerhistory offederal employee unions, see:Murray Nesbitt, LaborRelations in the Federal Government Service (Washington: Bureauof National Affairs,1976). See also: “TheLabor Month in Review,” Monthly LaborReview 85(February 1962),III– IV;MichaelMoskow, J.Joseph Loewenberg,and EdwardKoziara, Collective Bargaining in Public Employment (NewYork: Random House,1970), chapter 2; Jack Steiber, “ExecutiveOrder 10988,” in Collective Bargaining forPublic Employees, ed.Herbert Marx, Jr(New York: H.W.Wilson Co., 1969),134– 139. For the textof Executive Order 10988, see Collective Bargaining in the Public Service, ed. Daniel Krugerand Charles Schmidt, Jr(New York: Random House, 1969),77– 87. On Rhodes, seealso: “55in HouseTests in Pennsylvania,” New YorkTimes, 21October1962, p. 79. While the 1960Democratic Party platform calledfor strengthening of collective bargaining, especially through the repealof those sectionsof the Taft–Hartley Act which allowed state“ right-to-work”laws, there was nothing explicitlyin the platform on the coverageof federal employees under labor legislation.See Donald BruceJohnson, ed., National PartyPlatforms, Volume II—1960–1976 ,revded. (Urbana: University ofIllinois Press,1978), 574– 600, especially 583– 585. President Richard Nixonstrengthened Kennedy’ s policy with his own ExecutiveOrder 11491 in 1969,which provided forbinding arbitration ifrequested by eithera union ora governmentagency. See “ FederalEmployees,” Monthly LaborReview 92(December 1969), 70. 17Figurescompiled fromdescriptions of state laws in Robert Doherty, “Public Education,”in Collective Bargaining: ContemporaryAmerican Experience, ed.Gerald Somers (Madison: IndustrialRelations ResearchAssociation, 1980),487– 552, at 515–520. 18Bernstein, PromisesKept, has achaptertitled “ Updatingthe NewDeal.” 19For acritiqueof Bernstein’ s thesis, seeNelson Lichtenstein, “ IrvingBernstein’ s NewFrontier,” Labor History 37(Winter 1995– 1996), 90– 97. Essay Reviews 319 achievementsis an important aspectof all textbookson U.S.history, andan issue with which studentsof recent U.S. history mustengage. The relationship betweenpolitical leadersand social movementscan be examined through this legislation, justas it has long beenan interpretative issuein discussionsof theNLRA andthe rise oftheCIO. In this regard it is more than coincidentalthat the local enabling regulations which placedcollective bargaining for public employeeson thenational agenda came from theexecutive order in NewYork City in 1958, issued by Mayor Robert F.Wagner, Jr, theson of the author ofthe NLRA. One would think that textbook writers wouldlove that family connection,which at rstglance would indicatethat thelegislation itself wasthe decisive variable. Butthe most comprehensive history ofthegrowth ofthe AFSCME’ s NewYork District Council37 emphasizesthat Wagner wrotethe order after years ofpressure by city workers.Part ofhis motivation wasto appeal toliberal votersbecause of a feudwith theDemocratic Party machine. Implementation ofthe order required enormouspressure by thelabor movement, including strikesby teachersand other city workers. 20 Oneanalysis ofthe implementation ofcollective bargaining provisions for teachersaround the country emphasizes thesuccessful New York City teachers’strike of1960, predating Kennedy’s order,as astimulusfor thedemands of other teachersfor collective bargaining rights, andfor the urry ofstate legislation over thenext 15 years. 21 Labor economistand union consult- antJack Barbash has concludedthat “Theseencouraging lawsmust have tappeddeep reservesof sentiment to have evokedsuch volatile responses,”and “ Somestates enactedtheir lawsunder the forced draft ofemployee militancy.”22 The rise ofpublic employee unionismis a dramatic story,even recognized as such at thetime, especially in thecase of teachers. Early strikes,such as in NewYork City,gave way to what U.S. News &WorldReport in September1967 called a“rash”of teacher strikesacross the nation. 23 In the rstthree months of 1968 therewere strikes which closedschools in Cincinnati,Pittsburgh, SanFrancisco, Washington, DC, Albuquer- que,Manchester (New Hampshire),and Montgomery County(Maryland). Astate- widestrike by over 25,000 ofFlorida’ s 60,000 teacherslasted over threeweeks and affectedover 500,000 students.Most of thesestrikes were illegal, andoften led to the jailing ofteachers’ union leaders. In Pittsburgh, therewere mass arrests of picketing teachers—when they couldbe found. As one newspaper put it, “Pittsburgh teachers played ahide-and-seekgame with sheriff’s deputies,leaving aschoolwhen the deputies arrived andrushing topicket at another school.”Thus, teachers engaged in aform of civil disobedienceto wintheir demandsfor unionrecognition andhigher pay, for lower classsizes and more conduciveconditions for studentlearning, and,in thecase of San Francisco,for amore relevant curriculum.A dinnerhonoring fourimprisoned teachers’

20Jeweland BernardBellush, Union Power andNew York:Victor Gotbaumand District Council 37 (New York: Praeger,1984), 47– 80, especially 58– 59, 66– 70; see also: MarkMaier, City Unions: Managing Discontent in New YorkCity (NewBrunswick: RutgersUniversity Press, 1987), chapter 4; Zieger, American Workers,American Unions, 166.Collective bargaining for city workers began in Philadelphia evenbefore MayorWagner’ s NewYork City executiveorder; see Spero and Capozzola, The UrbanCommunity and Its Unionized Bureaucracies , 41–42. 21Doherty, “Public Education,”514, 521. 22Barbash, “Unionsand Rights in the Space Age,”262. For astrongargument that the actionsof workersrather than changesin laws werekey in building public employeeunions, seeMichael Gold- eld, “Public SectorUnion Growth and Public Policy,” Policy Studies Journal 18(Winter 1989– 1990), 404–420. 23“Back ofthe Rash ofTeachers’ Strikes,” U.S.News &WorldReport 63,18 September 1967,p. 54. 320 RobertShaffer unionleaders who began alabor movementcampaign tolobby for changesin statelaws underscoredthis reliance oncivil disobedience. 24 The Florida strike wasparticularly noteworthy,although it couldnot be called a success.With thebene t ofhindsight, wesee that this strike illustrated theprocess by whichthe NEA waschanged from aprofessionalassociation to a trade union.The NEA opposedteachers’ strikes at thebeginning of1968, soto avoid theappearance ofa strike,the Florida teacherswere instructed to submit their “resignations”to their local schoolboards. The tactic backred in anumberof ways: for example, it tookmonths after thestrike endedbefore some local schoolboards hired back their teachers.Despite thesetback, the NEA conventionthat July movedto endorse strikes when necessary, andto call for legalization ofteacher strikes,extending its new-foundmilitancy. 25 In 1968 theAmerican NursesAssociation, several postal unions,and the International Associationof Fire Fighters also eliminated strike prohibition clausesin their con- stitutions. 26 Theseteacher strikes,and strike threats whichled to agreements,were not marginal affairs in thelate 1960s. They garnered enormouspublic attention,because they involved parents,who would have to ndother arrangements for their children during astrike,because they involved local andstate taxation, becausethey wereillegal, and becausethey wereso unprecedented. Life magazine ran aphoto essayunder the headline,“ The shockof public strikes,”with asubheading,“ Ford [strike] wasex- pected—but teachers, remen,cops!“ The photographs showedcommunity supportfor striking teachersin theunion town of Gary, Indiana, butalso angry motherscon- fronting strikers in aDetroit suburb. 27 The national PTA wenton record opposing teacherstrikes, and observers lamented the decline in teacher participation in PTAs as involvement in teacher unionsincreased. 28 It wasnot just liberal publications suchas the Nation whichhad headlineslike “Teachers’revolt,” but also Look (“Our angry teachers”), Time (“Fighting mood”), Newsweek (“Teacher power”), Business Week (“Teachersget militant”), and Fortune (“Thosenewly militant government workers”). 29 U.S. News publisheda scorecardfor

24Information in this paragraph is fromthe voluminous coverageof teachers’ strikes in the New York Times duringthe rstfew months of1968. See, e.g., the followingarticles: 30 January, p. 29;2 February, p. 17;6 February, p. 36;10 February, p. 20;17 February, p. 60;18 February, p. 29;20 February, p. 1; 23February, p. 18;1 March,p. 25;6 March,p. 20;7 March,p. 49(on the “hide-and-seekgame” in Pittsburgh); 8March,p. 11;30 May, p. 33(on the fund-raisingcampaign). 25TheFlorida strikereceived extensive coverage in the New YorkTimes in 1968.See, e.g.: 20February, p. 1;21February, p. 33;25 February, sectionIV, p. 11;17 March, p. 37;7 July, p. 42;7 July, section IV,p. 9. For abriefdiscussion of the tacticalproblems ofthe NEAin this strikeand the problems caused by its self-conceptionas a“professionalassociation,” see Murphy, BlackboardUnions ,229–231. For a contemporarythoughtful overview,see: James Cass, “Politicsand Educationin the Sunshine State,” SaturdayReview, 20April 1968,pp. 63–65, 76– 79. For an accountby aleaderof the rival AFT, seeDavid Selden, The Teacher Rebellion (Washington: HowardUniversity Press, 1985), 180– 183. For oneanalysis ofwhy the strikefailed, seeJames Sullivan, “TheFlorida TeacherWalkout in the Political Transition of 1968,” in Southern Laborin Transition, 1940–1995 ,ed.Robert Zieger(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,1997), 205– 229. 26EverettKassalow, “ANewKind of Unionist,” in Collective Bargaining forPublic Employees, ed. Herbert Marx,Jr (New York: H.W.Wilson, 1969),15– 20, at 18;Ronald Filippelli, “Postal Strikeof 1970,” in LaborCon ict in the United States: An Encyclopedia ,ed.Filippelli (NewYork: Garland, 1990),423. 27“TheShock ofPublic Strikes,“ Life 63,22 September 1967,pp. 30D–34. 28New YorkTimes, 26May 1968,p. 74. 29“Teachers’Revolt,” The Nation,25September 1967,p. 260;“ OurAngry Teachers,” Look, 3 September 1968,pp. 64–66; “ Fighting Mood,” Time,8March1968, p. 43;“ TeacherPower,” Essay Reviews 321 its readersto keep track: “Teacher strikesacross the nation: who wants what.” Their headline writers,evidently taxed by somany storieson thesame issue, recycled in 1968 thesame metaphor ofdisease they had employed theprevious fall: “The coming rash ofteacher strikes.”30 The women’s magazines couldnot ignore an issueof such importance totheir readers,so Redbook explained “Why teachersare striking,“and GoodHousekeeping ran apoll ofits readerson whether teachers should have theright to strike.31 The tacticsand timing ofthese strikes and union organizing drives showthe in uence ofthe civil rights movement,the student movement, the feminist movement, and the questioningof the established order normally associatedwith the1960s. The connec- tionsbecame explicit at times:the AFT andthe AFSCME were early andenthusiastic backersof the civil rights movementin theSouth, the Reverend Martin LutherKing endorsedthe Philadelphia Federation ofTeachersduring its representationelection in 1965, andthe AFSCME’ s 1965 campaign toorganize thepredominantly African American municipal hospital workersin NewYork City “meld[ed] thelanguages of civil rights andunionism,” as historian JoshuaFreeman has written. 32 The critique popularized by theNew Left and the counterculture of increased workplace alienation wasnoted even at thetime in discussionsof the rise ofteacher unionism.33 It becameespecially prominent in commenton the disruptive, and again illegal, national wildcat strike ofpostal workersin 1970, which wasled in several cities by young African American workers,many ofwhom had at least somecollege education.34 The rapid rise in women’s paid employment during the1960s and1970s, andthe development of a newfeminist movement, helped push some public sector unionsto directly addresswomen’ s concernsin theworkplace. One scholar has called this “social movementunionism,” at its peak in the1970s and1980s. 35

Footnote 29 continued Newsweek,18September 1967,p. 65;“ TeachersGet Militant,” Business Week, 17August 1968, p. 100;“ ThoseNewly Militant GovernmentWorkers,” Fortune,August1968, pp. 104–107. 30“TeacherStrikes across the Nation: Who Wants What,” U.S.News &WorldReport ,11March 1968, p. 10;“ TheComing Rash ofTeacher Strikes,” U.S. News 65,2 September 1968,pp. 41–42. 31“Why TeachersAre Striking,” Redbook,March1969, p. 67;“ Should TeachersHave the Right to Strike?,” GoodHousekeeping ,April 1969,p. 12.These two articlesare among the documentsreprinted in Collective Bargaining forPublic Employees ,ed.Marx, published that same year. 32MarkMcColloch, “GloryDays: 1941–1969,” in Keystone ofDemocracy: AHistory ofPennsylvania Workers,ed. HowardHarris and PerryBlatz (Harrisburg:Pennsylvania Historicaland Museum Commission, 1999),213– 256, at 250;Joshua Freeman, Working-class New York:Life and Labor since World War II (NewYork: NewPress, 2000), 208. 33See,e.g., an analysis ofthe Florida strikequoting afederalmediator who said that teachershad begun to feellike assembly-line workers,in New YorkTimes, 17March 1968, p. 37. 34For near-contemporaryaccounts of the postal strikeby labor historians, see:Jeremy Brecher, Strike! (San Francisco:Straight ArrowBooks, 1972),271– 274; Stanley Aronowitz, False Promises:The Shaping ofAmerican Working ClassConsciousness (NewYork: McGraw-Hill,1973), 310– 312; Aronowitz and Brecher,“ ThePostal Strike,”in Root &Branch:The Rise ofthe Workers’Movements, ed.Brecher et al. (Greenwich:Fawcett, 1975), 28– 39; Stephen Shannon, “WorkStoppage in Government:The Postal Strikeof 1970,” Monthly LaborReview 101,July 1978,pp. 14–22. For amorerecent scholarly account, seeJohn Walsh and GarthMangum, LaborStruggles in the Post Ofce: FromSelective Lobbyingto Collective Bargaining (Armonk: M.E.Sharpe, 1992).For comments on workplacealienation in white-collarjobs in areportcommissioned by the Nixonadministration, see Workin America:Report ofa Special TaskForce to the Secretary ofHealth, Education, andWelfare (Cambridge: MITPress,1973), 38– 40. 35Paul Johnston, Success WhileOthers Fail:Social Movement Unionism andthe Public Workplace (Ithaca: ILRPress,1994); Deborah Bell, “UnionizedWomen in State and LocalGovernment,” in Women, Work andProtest: ACentury ofU.S. Women’ s LaborHistory ,ed. Ruth Milkman (NewYork: Routledge,1985), 322 RobertShaffer

The growth ofpublic employee unionismdid not always merge seamlesslywith other social movementsof the time, however,which in turnhighlights thenational import- anceof one key local strike.The NewYork City teachersstrike of1968— the “ Ocean Hill–Brownsville” strike— was directed against demandsby African American groups for “community control”of the schools. This bitter dispute,which still engenders passionatedebate among participants andhistorians, indisputably had several long- term outcomeswhich are important toU.S. societyas a whole.It placedgreat stresson thelabor– civil rights coalition, andit exacerbated conict betweenAfrican Americans andJews, as the majority ofNew York City teachersand of the union leadership at the time wereJewish. More broadly, it exposed ssuresamong Democratic Party con- stituencies.These issues are at theheart ofany understandingof American politics and social thought from the1960s tothepresent. The OceanHill– Brownsville strike helped pushthe AFT tothe right, especially after theaccession of the New York City strike leader,Albert Shanker,to the national AFT presidencyin 1974. This in turnhad an important impact onthe trajectory ofAFL-CIO politics in the1970s and1980s. 36 Public employee unionscontinued to exert their powerin thedecades following the 1960s. The rststate-wide strike ofstate employees, in Pennsylvania in 1975, occurred during arenewedstrike wavearound the nation. Public employeeswere angered by ination andgovernment cutbacks,but with the scal crisesof the1970s and1980s in statesand localities, thegains ofpublic employee unionscame more slowly. 37 Many Americans blamed public employeesand their unionsfor rising taxes andurban problems. Beginning with theProposition 13 movementin California in the1970s, the “tax revolt”formed an important basefor Reagan’s rise tothe presidency, and was in part abacklash against thegains ofpublic employee unions. 38 The Reagan administration symbolically inaugurated theopen assault by corporate America ontrade unionismin the1980s with the ring ofthe striking air trafc controllers,the federal employeeswho were members ofPATCO, in 1981. Indeed,it isdif cult to understand the signi cance of Reagan’ s harsh responseto the PATCO strikers withoutmaking thecomparison tothe equally illegal strike 11 years beforeby 200,000 postal workers.This earlier action resultedin major economicgains for the strikers andthe government wasunable to enforce anti-strike lawsduring thestrike. Despitethe harsher environmentof the later 1970s and1980s, teachers’unions, in

Footnote 35 continued 280–299. For morecritical interpretations of public employeeunion policieson women members, see Norma Riccucci, Women,Minorities, andUnions in the Public Sector (Westport: GreenwoodPress, 1990), and Wayne Urban, “Courtingthe Woman Teacher:The National EducationAssociation, 1917–1970,” History ofEducation Quarterly 41(2001), 139–166. 36For onehighly criticalaccount of Shanker’ s leadership, seeMaier, City Unions,chapter8. For abrief, recentoverview of the 1968strike, see Joshua Freeman, Working-class New York:Life and Labor since World War II (NewYork: NewPress, 2000), 217– 227. For anoteon the conict between police unions and AfricanAmerican communities in NewYork City, seeFreeman, 215–217. 37HowardHarris, “ HardTimes and NewHopes, 1970–1997,” in Keystone ofDemocracy: AHistory of Pennsylvania Workers ,275–325, at 291–293. See also contemporarycoverage in the New YorkTimes , such as 2July 1975,p. 65,and 6July 1975,section IV, p. 1. On the causesof the 1974–1975 public employee strikewave, see:Barbash, “Unionsand Rights in the Space Age,”262; Filippelli, Laborin the USA, 271–273; and Green, The Worldof the Worker, 235. 38See,e.g.: Maier, City Unions, chapter11; Johnston, Success WhileOthers Fail, 3, 37–39, and passim. For apoorly argued“ scholarly”case that public employeeunionism was responsiblefor these scalcrises, seeLeo Troy, The New Unionism in the New Society: Public Sector Unions in the Redistributive State (Fairfax: GeorgeMason UniversityPress, 1994), especially 147– 155. Essay Reviews 323 particular, developedimpressive reputationsfor their political power,and became important factorsin national andlocal elections.The alliance ofthe Democratic Party with theNEA and the AFT, andthe equally strong denunciationof theseunions by the Republicansas “ special interests,”became major focal pointsof the presidential electionsof 1976, 1984, and1996. Onemight almost say that theattitudes toward the public employee unionsencapsulated the rhetorical divide betweenDemocrats, who claimed that government had apositive role toplay in American domesticlife, and Republicans,whose public posturewas that government itself wasthe problem in U.S. society.Highly visible political activism in thepublic employee unionscan also be compared toa major issuein late 19th centurypolitics: civil servicereform andthe demandto prohibit government workersfrom engaging in political activities. The rise ofpublic employee unionism,then, is important in its ownright asa signicant transformation in U.S.labor relations, andas one aspect of recent changes in theU.S. workforceand in thelabor movement.It emergedin part becauseof the baby boom,and forms part ofthe upsurge of social movementsof the 1960s, twoof the standardtopics of U.S. history textbooksin thepostwar era. Becausepublic employee unionization resultedin permanentorganizations, onecould easily argue that this movementhas had alasting impact equivalent tothe other upsurgesof the 1960s. In its relation tochanges in thenature of the U.S. statein thepostwar era, public employee unionismhas beenat thecenter of debate in recentdecades about thestate in U.S.society. In thespirit of“internationalizing”American history, onemight addthat historians have long recognizedthe impact ofthe European New Left on the workers’ uprisings in 1968 and1969, especially in France andItaly. Moreover,European New Left theorists,such as Andre Gorz, whose in uence extended to the U.S., emphasized the needfor thedefense, expansion, and democratization ofthe public sector,including higher education,as a major componentof astrategy for radical change. 39 Comparative studiesof the 1960s shouldbegin tosee some commonalities betweenthe U.S. and Europe,not merely differences.For alater period,the thorny issueof public employee strikescan also beplaced in transnational perspective,as Reagan redthe PATCO workersas he lionized striking public employeesin Poland’s Solidarity movement. 40 Sohow do U.S. history textbookstreat this important aspectof our recent history? Of the12 college textbooksreviewed, only two—the American Social History Project’s WhoBuilt America?, andDavid Goldeld et al.’ s TheAmerican Journey— offer any substantivediscussion of public employee unionism.Only oneother textbook,Faragher et al., Out of Many,evenmentions the growth ofpublic employee unionismin the 1960s and1970s. The coverage ofthe post-World War IIlabor movementin general in mosttextbooks issuper cial at best. 41 There is generally discussionof theanti-union Taft– Hartley Act of1947, themerger ofthe AFL and the CIO aspart ofa descriptionof labor at the

39Andre Gorz, Strategy forLabor: A RadicalProposal, trans. MartinNicolaus and VictoriaOrtiz (Boston: BeaconPress, 1967), especially 175– 179. 40Nesbitt, LaborRelations in the FederalGovernment Service, 368–374, contrasts the Americanprohibition on public employeestrikes with the rightof such employeesto strikein Canada and many western Europeannations. 41Dorothy Sue Cobble and AliceKessler-Harris, “ TheNew Labor Historyin AmericanHistory Textbooks,” Journal ofAmerican History 79(1993), 1534–1545, which reviewedseven textbooks from the late1980s to the early1990s, make this point; the newereditions of these textbooks exhibit few improvements. 324 RobertShaffer height ofits power,and a fewparagraphs oftext or agraph toshow the decline in organized American workersfrom the1960s tothe present. Exceptions to this neglect are CesarChavez andthe United Farm Workers Union,sometimes with aprominent photograph orasa special feature,and a referenceto thecrushing ofthe PATCO strike, oftenas prelude to a brief discussionof the decline of organized labor in the1980s. Several textbooksdiscuss changes in thegender makeup ofthe labor forceand the declineof manufacturing, butonly in afewcases does this coverage notegrowth in public employment, let alone growth in public employee unionism. All textbooks,of course, include some discussion of Kennedy’ s domesticpolicies, but nonemention his executiveorder encouraging collective bargaining onthe federal level, or therelated legal changesat thestate and local levels.Chapters on the social movementsof the1960s follow afairly standardprogression in covering thecivil rights andstudent movements, the New Left, counterculture, and the feminist, Latino, Native American, andgay andlesbian movements. 42 Sometextbooks also have sections onthe environmental andconsumer movements. Only WhoBuilt America? relates these social movementsto the unrest among workers,including public employees,in thelate 1960s.43 Afewspeci c examples will make theomissions clearer. Mosttextbooks have no entry in their index for theAFT, theAFSCME, the AFGE, or postal unions,and no discussionof these unions or workersin their pages.Indeed, the only textbook to mentionthe AFT specically is WhoBuilt America? 44 Others mentionthe NEA, or the teaching profession,but in thecontext of the Progressive Era,not later. 45 The last mentionof the AFL or theCIO in Martin etal., Americaand Its Peoples ,concernsthe strike waveof 1946 andthe Taft– Hartley Act,and the only subsequentreferences to thelabor movementare about theUFW andPATCO. 46 Of thosetextbooks which do discuss the labor movementafter 1960, thetypical analysis focusessolely ondecline. Norton et al., APeopleand aNation, describesthe powerof unionized blue-collar workersin post-WorldWar IIeconomicprosperity and includesa brief sectionon “ Hard times for labor unions”in its chapter on“ The end ofthe postwar boom.” Norton and her co-authorsnote the membership lossesof unionsdue to the decline of heavy industry,and they addthat membership drives in “thehigh-growth electronicand service sectors of the economy were failing.” 47 Henrettaet al., America’s History, whichin general is quitestrong onsocial and demographic trends,and includes among its co-authorsthe distinguished labor historian David Brody, notesthe decline in theunionized proportion ofthe workforce, especially after 1975, dueto plant closings,and the growth ofemployment in the

42For oneof the moreextensive examples of this narrative,see Faragher et al., Out of Many, 883–888, 892–903. 43For areviewof the treatmentof the 1960sin surveytextbooks, which points to certainoverall patterns and strikingomissions, but which doesnot addressthe issueof the labor movement, seeVan Gosse, “Consensusand Contradiction in TextbookTreatments of the Sixties,” Journal ofAmerican History 82 (1995), 658–669. 44WhoBuilt America? (1992), 602; WhoBuilt America? (2000), 669–670. The later edition adds a photograph ofan empty classroomduring the strike,but with an inadequate—even confusing— caption. 45See,e.g.: Brinkley, American History ,725;Divine etal., AmericaPast and Present, 692;Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision, 620;Faragher et al., Out of Many,571,623; Nash and Jeffrey, The American People , 672. 46Martinet al., Americaand Its Peoples ,777,898, 900– 901, 921. 47Norton etal., APeople anda Nation ,810,928. For brieferbut similar coverage,see Tindall and Shi, America, 1615. Essay Reviews 325 servicesector. 48 Noone will denythis declinein unionmembership andpower, but accuracy demandssome mention of themajor areas oftrade uniongrowth which have countered,or partially offset,the overall trend. Part ofthe reason for theseeming invisibility ofpublic employeesappears tobe the overly broad usein many textbooksof the term “servicesector.” This term seemsto cover everything from government employment andthe non-pro t hospital andhealth care industry,where labor unionshave had reasonable success,to the tourism and nancial industries,which have indeedbeen far more resistantto unions. Boyer etal., in TheEnduring Vision ,combinethis declinemotif with anexplicit failure torecognize recent trends and legal changes.They attribute thedecline of AFL-CIO inuence beginning in the1950s tocomplacency with success,the loss of blue-collar jobs,and the growth ofemployment in the“ servicesector and in public employment, whichbanned collective bargaining by labor unions.”49 Surely with sucha statement theseauthors have anobligation tonote the opening ofcollective bargaining topublic employeesin the1960s. Nash andJeffrey notethat thetrade unionmovement stalled in the1960s, explaining that: “Unionstried toexpand their baseby reaching outto new groups— less skilled minority workersand white-collar, service-orientedemployees— but these groups proved difcult to organize.” They briey mentionthe growth in public employment, butnot of unionization in this sector.Thus, when Nash andJeffrey later statethat Reagan’s ring ofthe PATCO workerswas, in part, amessageto public employeesto beless militant, its impact isless clear than it might be,since readers had notbeen informedof the earlier rise ofgovernment unionsand strikes. 50 Perhaps textbook authorsbelieve that coverage ofthe United Farm Workers Union’s effortsto organize grape andlettuce workers, and the nation-wide boycott of non-union producethat their effortssparked, adequately conveysthe relationship ofsocial movementsof the1960s tolabor issues.As one who spent many Saturday mornings during high schooland college urging shoppersto boycott grapes andlettuce, I welcomethis spaceand respect which textbooksdevote to this movement.But while theUFW mobilized millions ofAmericans in the1960s and1970s tosupport its efforts,the public employee unionsenrolled, and continue to enroll, millions ofmembers in their ranks.An objective evaluation wouldsurely concludethat public employee strikeshad asmuch of an impact onthe lives ofAmericans asdid the UFW’ s strikesand boycotts, andthat public employee unionshave left animprint onU.S. societyat least as signicant as that ofthe UFW. 51 Moreover,if onenotes, as several textbooksdo, that part ofthe struggle ofthe UFW wasto overcome through legislation theexclusion of agricultural workersfrom theNational Labor Relations Act,then it is justas important tonote the legal changesin thestatus of public employees.One may speculatethat coverage oftheUFW in thecontext of the emergence of the1960s Chicanomovement,

48Henrettaet al., America’s History ,905,983– 985, 1017. 49Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision , 826, 946. 50Nash and Jeffrey, The American People, 846,999– 1004, especially 1001. Nash and Jeffreyinclude a graph, at 1001,which illustratesthe declinein union membership as apercentageof the workforce,but which visually overstatesits caseby usinga baselineof 14%, insteadof a baselineof 0%, so that in 1997 it looks as ifunion membership has virtually disappeared. 51Inaddition to Martinet al., Americaand Its Peoples ,mentionedabove, textbookswhich giveprominent coverageto the UFWbut nothing to public employeeunionism, and virtually nothing to the tradeunion movement as awhole after1960, include: Tindall and Shi, America, 1452–1453; Brinkley, American History, 1070;Roark etal., The American Promise, 1045–1046; and Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision , 1066–1067. 326 RobertShaffer coupledwith thevirtual absenceof public employee unionismin thetextbooks, demonstratesthat advocatesof ethnic inclusivity in U.S.history have had greater successthan advocatesof attention to issues of class. There isone additional place in which several textbooksallude topublic employee unionism,though theconnection is notas explicit asit couldbe. Most textbooks discussthe assassination of Martin LutherKing in Memphis,and a fewnote that he wasthere to support striking sanitation workers.Indeed, the statement in Roark etal., TheAmerican Promise, that King wasin Memphis“ tosupport a strike ofmunicipal garbage workers”is theonly referencein that textbook topublic employee unionism. But only WhoBuilt America? specically identies the union— the AFSCME— which mountedthe organizing drive. Readersof other textbookswould not associate this sanitation strike with thewave of public employee unionization in progress acrossthe countryin thespring of1968. Indeed,readers of some textbooks could be forgiven if they didnot realize that thesesanitation workerswere public employees. 52 This incident couldbe a goodopportunity for more textbooksto explore therelationship betweenthe civil rights movementand the growth ofpublic sectorunionization. It also servesas a vivid reminder that many public employeeswho joined unions were not white-collar workers,but manual laborers. AsSterling Speroand John Capozzola have noted,the AFSCMEorganized workersfrom “A”to“ Z”—architects tozookeepers— but at the endof the 1960s its membership was70% blue-collar. 53 The entry ofAfrican American workersinto low-wage public employment in Memphisand elsewhere may also be related tothe mechanization ofcottonproduction by the1950s andthe beginnings of deindustrialization ofNorthern— and some Southern— cities in the1960s. 54 There are other themeswhich sometextbooks raise whichrepresent missed opportu- nitiesfor discussionof public employee unions.Boyer etal. refer tothe impact ofthe baby boom onschool enrollment, and discuss the dramatic rise in college enrollment in the1950s and1960s. Butthese authors do not connect these trends to the growth in public schoolor public higher-education employment andto the unionization of schoolteachers,college faculty,and other education-relatedstaff. 55 Faragher etal. have aparticularly gooddiscussion of the social programs ofLyndon Johnson’ s Great Society,but they donotmake theconnection to the expansion of public sectorjobs and unionization. 56 Roark etal., whohave oneof the more analytical discussionsof the

52Roark etal., The American Promise, 1043;Freeman et al., WhoBuilt America?, 584.For weakcoverage and connectionshere, see: Nash and Jeffrey, The American People, 958,and Martinet al., Americaand Its Peoples,887.For bettercoverage, which at leastnotes that Kingwas in Memphis to support astrikeby sanitation workers,see: Brinkley, American History, 1059–1060, Faragher et al., Out of Many, 894, and Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision, 1092.On the Memphis strike,see: J. EdwinStan eld, “InMemphis: Morethan aGarbageStrike,” in BlackWorkers: A Documentary History fromColonial Timesto the Present , ed. Phillip Fonerand Ronald Lewis(Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press, 1989), 585– 603 (a contemporarysource); Joan TurnerBeifuss, Atthe RiverI Stand:Memphis, the 1968Strike andMartin Luther King (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1989);“ At the RiverI Stand”( lm), dir. David Appleby, Allison Graham, and StevenRoss (Memphis State University,1993); Michael Honey, “MartinLuther King,Jr, the Crisisof the Black WorkingClass, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike,”in Southern Labor in Transition, ed. Zieger,146– 175; Steve Estes, “ ‘I AM AMAN’: Race,Masculinity, and the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike,” LaborHistory 41(2000),153–170. 53Sterlingand Capozzola, The UrbanCommunity andIts Unionized Bureaucracies , 18. 54SeeHoney, “MartinLuther King, Jr, the Crisisof the Black WorkingClass, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike,”for a persuasive—and deeplymoving— argument about the political and economic conditions which underlaythis strike. 55Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision (1990), 1027,1081; Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision (2000) 830. 56Faragheret al., Out of Many, 888–892. Essay Reviews 327 achievementsand problems ofthe social movementsof the 1960s, couldstrengthen their worthwhile discussionof “ Black nationalism andthe end of the civil rights coalition”with aparagraph onthe1968 OceanHill– Brownsville strike. 57 Henrettaet al. discussthe problems womenhave facedin thelabor forcein recentdecades, but fail to notethat themajor effortsto increase women’ s wagesrelative tomen’ s, especially in the movementin the1980s for “comparable worth,”have beenpressed by public employee unions.58 Roark etal., in asectionon feminist organizations foundedin the1970s, assertthat “blue-collar womenorganized theNational Coalition ofLabor Union Women[CLUW].” At the CLUW’ sfoundingconvention, attended by members of58 national unions,observers noted that delegationsfrom theAFSCME, the AFT, the AFGE,and the APWU were as numerous as those from theAmalgamated Clothing Workers,the United Auto Workers, the Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters. 59 Divine etal. mentionthe organization ofthe NEA aspart ofthe Progressive Era’s drive towardprofessionalization in many elds,and could easily returnlater tonote the stressesand strains on the organization in the1960s and1970s asit redened itself as atrade union. 60 Nortonet al. are among theauthors who note that in thepostwar economicboom industrial workersbegan toenjoy a “middle-class”lifestyle, an obser- vation whichcould easily lead toadiscussionof thegrowing interestamong “middle- class”professionals in aworking-classinstitution, the trade union.Indeed, some of the bestrecent work on professional groups whichhave embracedunionization, such as Daniel Walkowitz’s studyof social workers,Marjorie Murphy’s andWayne Urban’s accountsof teacher unions,and Susan Leighow’ s analysis ofnurses, note the complex relationship betweenclass and professional status in modernAmerica. 61 WhoBuilt America? isa surveytextbook with anexplicit focuson the role of“working people”in American life, soit isnot surprising that it wouldhave themost complete coverage ofpublic sectorunionism, including its impact onshoring upoverall labor unionmembership. 62 This textbook describesthe militancy ofteachers and postal workersin thelate 1960s andearly 1970s, placing them in thecontext of the other social movementsof theera. Noting that mostof these strikes were illegal, theauthors commentthat “public-sectorunionism had the avor ofan underground movement, a

57Roark etal., The American Promise ,1039–1043. 58Henrettaet al., America’s History ,983–984; see also Norton etal., APeople anda Nation ,4th ed.(1994), 1047,for similar treatment.On public employeeunions and the “comparable worth”movement, see:Bell, “Unionizedwomen in stateand localgovernment” ; Riccucci, Women,Minorities, andUnions in the Public Sector,chapter6; Johnston, Success WhileOthers Fail,passim . 59Roark etal., The American Promise, 1100;Patricia Cayo Sexton, “Workers(Female) Arise!,” Dissent 21(1974), 380–395. 60Divine etal., AmericaPast and Present , 692. 61Norton etal., APeople anda Nation, 4th ed. (1994), 927–928; Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision , 1st ed.(1990), 1022;Daniel Walkowitz, Working with Class:Social Workersand the Politics ofMiddle-class Identity (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press,1999); Murphy, BlackboardUnions ; Wayne Urban, Gender,Race andthe National Education Association: Professionalismand Its Limitations (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2000);Susan Leighow, Nurses’Questions/ Women’s Questions: The Impactof the DemographicRevolution andFeminism on U.S.Working Women,1946– 1986 (NewYork: PeterLang, 1996). 62Joshua Freeman, the leadauthor ofseveral chapters in the 1992edition, has writtena major study ofan important blue-collarmunicipal union, InTransit: The Transport WorkersUnion in New YorkCity, 1933–1966 (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1989), and morerecently authored an accountof the postwar NewYork City labor movement which givesmajor attention to municipal unionism, Working-class New York.NelsonLichtenstein, the leadauthor ofthe revisededition, has writtena biography ofa major gurein the post-World WarII labor movement: WalterReuther: The Most Dangerous Manin Detroit (New York: Basic Books, 1995). 328 RobertShaffer consciousness-changingsocial crusade.”This textbook doesnot simply celebrate the achievementsof these unions, however. It discussesthe Ocean Hill– Brownsville strike (theonly textbook tomention it), with its legacy ofdistrust between teachers’ union activists andmany African Americans.It also devotesspace to theimpact ofthe scal crisesof the1970s onpublic workersand their unions,especially in NewYork City. 63 With its focuson social movements,however, WhoBuilt America? neglectsto note thelegal changeswhich wereessential for theinstitutionalization ofthe public union upsurge.Overall, other textbook authorswould do well tostudy the ways Who Built America? coversthis issue.Professors using other textsshould consult Who Built America? for material for lecturesand discussion questions on public sectorunionism. Somemight objectthat textbooksare already overcrowded,that authorscannot includeeverything. Theseare important considerations,of course, but certainly in sometextbooks space does not seem to be the main concern.Brinkley’ s American History,whichhas nota wordas far asI couldsee on public employee unionism, devotes10 pages tothe music of the 1950s and1960s andthe development of television. 64 Theseare important topics,but this 1000-page textbook couldeasily tin aprole ofa selectedteacher strike,or ofan AFSCMEorganizing drive among low-paid workers.Faragher etal., Out of Many,has asolid15 pages onthe various social movementsof the 1960s, showingtheir developmentsand interconnections. 65 Surely thereis spaceto discuss the impact ofthese movements on the massive postal strike of1970, or onthe demands for legislative changesto allow unionization ofpublic employees.Roark etal., TheAmerican Promise, devotestwo pages ofthe text proper to thecampus protest movement, along with afour-page featureof documents about studentrights. 66 Someanalysis ofthe carry-over tothe faculty unionizationefforts of theearly 1970s, which oftenincluded veterans of the student protest movement, would tnicely here. Authorsof textbooks designed speci cally for coursesin post-WorldWar IIU.S. history, whichone might expectwould go into more depthabout labor issuesand eventsof the1960s, donot, in fact,do more than theaverage surveytextbook writers onthis issue.LaFeber etal. have onereference to the political cloutof the NEA bythe late 1970s, butcall it a“trade association,”like theAmerican MedicalAssociation. 67 Mossincludes one sentence on theAFSCME’ s effortsto unionize white-collar workers, in asectionon labor in the1950s. 68 Horowitzand Carroll, whooverall doa goodjob oneconomic and social trends,devote half asentenceto the postal strike of1970. They accurately situatethis strike in thecontext of worker unrestresponding to the rise in government debt,high interestrates, and in ation underNixon— but they present nothing elseon public employeesor unions. 69 Rosenbergand Rosenberg include comprehensivediscussions of the labor movementin the1950s andthe 1980s, but nothing onlabor in thelate 1960s or early 1970s, andnothing onpublic sectorunions at all.70 Chafe,whose TheUn nished Journey is in many waysa brilliant interpretive essayof the U.S. in thelast 60 years,discusses the growing resentmentof work by

63WhoBuilt America? (1992), 597–598, 602, 617, 652– 653. There is similar, although not quite as extensive,coverage in the rewrittenedition; see,especially, WhoBuilt America? (2000), 667–670, 724– 728. 64Brinkley, American History, 1004–1008, 1011, 1056– 1057, 1071– 1075. 65Faragheret al., Out of Many,883–888, 892– 903. 66Roark etal., The American Promise, 1046–1051. 67LaFeberet al., The American Century, 502. 68Moss, Moving On, 93–94. 69Horowitzand Carroll, On The Edge, 462. 70Rosenbergand Rosenberg, In Our Times,63–66, 279– 282. Essay Reviews 329 blue-collar workersin thelate 1960s and1970s, andhe relates theseattitudes to the “cultural revolution ofthe 1960s.” There isno mention of similar trendsamong white-collar or government workers,however, and indeed no discussion of government employment or unions.Again theonly referenceto the NEA is toits political role, in Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign for President. 71 Several ofthese books note Kennedy’s effortsto raise theminimum wage andhis confrontationwith thesteel industry,but none discuss Executive Order 10988. Textbook authors,of course, rely onoverviews by historians ofparticular time periods.Of themajor accountsof Kennedy’ s presidency,Irving Bernstein’s Promises Kept standsalone as even mentioning ExecutiveOrder 10988. Bernstein’s account, moreover, clearly showsthe background toand the impact ofthe executive order on unionization at thefederal, state, and local levels. 72 Other bookson Kennedy at best cover his relations with thetrade unionleadership andthe steel controversy. 73 Unfortunately,synthetic treatments of the 1960s asa wholeoffer little help to authorsor teachersin this area. William O’Neill’s early surveycovered the Ocean Hill–Brownsville strike,as does David Caute’s transnational review ofthe events of 1968, butthey includenothing elseon public employee unionization. 74 Allen Matusow notesbrie y theNEA’ s role in theunsuccessful effort during Kennedy’s presidencyto expandfederal aid toeducation. 75 David Farber’s is bynomeansthe only monograph or textbook with alisting in theindex for “teach-ins”but not “ teachers.”One essay in Farber’s editedcollection on The Sixties hasa sophisticatedanalysis ofthe links between economicpolicy andnational andinternational politics, buteven this article doesnot connectthe ideology of“ growth liberalism”with increasedpublic sectoremployment. 76 The rstedition, from 1991, ofDavid Chalmers’s overview ofthe 1960s also includesnothing onpublic employee unionism.The slightly revised1996 edition, however,adds a fewsentences which give thealert reader ahint ofthe long-term interconnectionsbetween the 1960s studentmovement and public employee unions. HereChalmers notesthat one-timeStudents for aDemocratic Societynational secretary andlongtime community organizer Paul Booth had movedto Washington in the 1990s tobecome organizing director ofthe “ powerful”public employeesunion, the AFSCME.But Chalmers missedhis chanceto demonstrate how the AFSCME became “powerful”in thedecade which he is analyzing. 77 71Chafe, The Unnished Journey, 448–449, 475. 72Bernstein, PromisesKept, 204–217. 73See,e.g.: Arthur Schlesinger,Jr, AThousand Days:John F.Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1965);Henry Fairlie, The Kennedy Promise:The Politics ofExpectation (GardenCity: Doubleday,1973); HerbertParmet, JFK:The Presidency ofJohn F.Kennedy (NewYork: Dial Press,1983); James Giglio, The Presidency ofJohn F.Kennedy (Lawrence:University Press of Kansas, 1991);Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Prole ofPower (NewYork: Simon and Schuster,1993). 74William O’Neill, Coming Apart:An InformalHistory ofAmerica in the 1960s (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971),184– 187; David Caute, The Year ofthe Barricades:A Journey through 1968 (New York: Harperand Row, 1988),411– 414. David Burner’s morerecent Making Peace Withthe 60s (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1996) makes do with only two sentenceson that strike(72), and otherwise only the mention that the ReverendKing was assassinated while supporting agarbageworkers’ strike (64). 75Allen Matusow, The Unraveling ofAmerica: A History ofLiberalism in the 1960s (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1984),105. 76David Farber, The Age ofGreat Dreams:America in the 1960s (NewYork: Hill and Wang, 1994);Robert Collins, “GrowthLiberalism in the Sixties,”in The Sixties: FromMemory to History, ed.David Farber (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press,1994), 11– 44. 77David Chalmers, Andthe CrookedPlaces MadeStraight: The Struggle forSocial Change in the 1960s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1991); Chalmers, Andthe CrookedPlaces MadeStraight, 2nd ed.(Baltimore: JHUPress, 1996), 187. 330 RobertShaffer

Peter Levy’s 1998 documentaryhistory ofthe 1960s coversa widerthan usualvariety ofissues and viewpoints, including ve sourcesfrom orabout thelabor movement:on Medicare,Vietnam, theintegration ofconstruction trades, and farmworkers. Maurice Issermanand Michael Kazin’s recententry tothe eldalso includesa bit more than mostsurveys on theparticipation ofthe United Auto Workers in 1960s liberalism and onthe role oftheAFL-CIO. But in neither bookis theremention of teachers’or postal unionsor their strikes,or ofthe growth in public sectoremployment orunionization. 78 The standardnarrative ofthe movements of the 1960s— spreading from thecivil rights andstudent movements to the antiwar, feminist,Latino, gay, andenvironmental movements—is, of course, very powerful,and there are several reasonswhy it endures andcontinues to crowd out treatment ofpublic employee unionism.While public employee strikesdid engender a lot ofmedia attentionand public discussion,they had ahard time competing for attentionwith studentdemonstrations, race relations issues, andAmerican military actionsand antiwar activity. While the Reader’s Guide for PeriodicalLiterature for March 1968 toFebruary 1969 devoteda half-page toarticles on “Strikes—U.S.— teachers,” it had threefull pages on“Studentdemonstrations,” about half ofwhich focused on U.S. colleges. 79 The teacher strikesof March 1968 occurred at thesame time that thePresident’ s National Advisory Commissionon Civil Disorders (theso-called Kerner Commission) issued its provocative report which warnedthat the U.S.wasincreasingly becoming twosocieties, one black andone white, and as the U.S. wasstill ghting toregain controlof thecities of South Vietnam in thewake of theTet Offensive.80 Within amonth,Johnson’ s announcementthat hewas withdrawing from thepresidential race,and the assassination of Martin LutherKing andsubsequent urban riots,had turnedthe nation’ s attentionaway from thesestrikes. The postal strike of1970, similarly, precededby justsix weeksthe U.S. invasion ofCambodia, the killings ofstudent protesters at KentState and Jackson State, and the shutdown of college campusesacross the nation. Indeed, the invasion ofCambodia andsubsequent eventspostponed by several monthsCongressional action ona nal settlementof the postal agreement. 81 Butthe focus in thetextbooks on the student and civil rights movement,I suspect, also relates towhat ourcurrent textbook authorswere doing in the1960s. Manywere either active in orsurroundedby thestudent movement at thetime, or already teaching onthe campuses affected by thestudent upsurge. Those textbook authorswho were not yet adultsin the1960s have tendedto rely onthe accounts of the time by colleagues whoseoutlook was formed by their campusorientation, and by theoverviews of the period which maintain this focus. Survey textbook authorswould gain far more insight intopublic employee unionism by consultingreadily available textbookson U.S. labor history, which provided many ofthe statistics and contributed to the interpretations usedhere. Most at least mention

78Americain the Sixties—Right, Left,and Center: ADocumentary History ,ed. PeterLevy (Westport: Praeger,1998); Maurice Isserman and MichaelKazin, AmericaDivided: The CivilWar of the 1960s (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000). 79Compare Reader’s Guide to PeriodicalLiterature: March1968– February 1969 (NewYork: H.W.Wilson Co., 1969),1140, and 1141–1145. 80Compare New YorkTimes, 1March1968, p. 1on the KernerCommission and the ghtingin South Vietnam, with p. 25on the teacherstrikes. Sullivan, “TheFlorida TeacherWalkout in the Political Transition of1968,” argues (not entirelysuccessfully, in my view) that this strikefailed in largepart because it occurredin the midst ofthe largersocial con icts of 1968. 81Walsh and Mangum, LaborStruggle in the Post Ofce , 32–33. Essay Reviews 331

Kennedy’s ExecutiveOrder 10988 andrelated local legislation, andmany are adeptat explaining thesources of public employee discontentwhich led to thestrike waveof the late 1960s andearly 1970s. 82 There is,however, too little attentioneven in theselabor history textsto the NEA, which,while outsideof the AFL-CIO, still has thelargest numberof workers under collective bargaining agreementsof any American union. Surveysof labor history onthe state and local level may notbe rston the list for textbook authorsto read, but recent publications onIllinois, Pennsylvania, andNew York City workersinclude valuable material onorganizing by theAFSCME, the AFT, andthe NEA from the1950s tothe 1970s. 83 Butlabor historians mustshoulder some of the blame for theinadequate treatment in textbooksof public employee unionism,as detailed studies of the phenomenon thus far have beenfew. From 1990 to2000, LaborHistory publishedonly twoarticles specically ongovernment workers,one on the Boston police strike of1919, andthe other onthe Memphis sanitation workers’strike of1968. 84 Of thehundreds of books which LaborHistory reviewedduring this decade,only six focusedspeci cally onpublic employeesor their unions,while ahandfulof others touched on this theme. 85 Meanwhile,the Journalof AmericanHistory publishedno articles during the1990s on post-1960 government employee unions,although it ran anumberof articles onrecent U.S.history. 86 Evenan article reviewing howlabor historians have usedoral history

82The U.S.Department ofLabor History ofthe American Worker (1976)and Green, The Worldof the Worker (1980)are somewhat dated, but still valuable. Filippelli, Laborin the USA (1984)and Zieger, American Workers,American Unions (1994), alightly updated versionof the 1986 rstedition, both emphasize the connectionsbetween the civilrights, youth, and feministmovements ofthe 1960sand public employee militancy and unionization; Ziegeradds, at 165,that many ofthese new union members werechildren ofprivate sectorunion members. Ofthe two most recentlabor history surveys,Nelson, Shifting Fortunes (1997)and Babson, The Unnished Struggle (1999), the formeris more comprehensive on theseissues. MajorProblems in the History ofAmerican Workers ,ed. EileenBoris and NelsonLichtenstein (Lexington: D.C.Heath, 1991),a compilation ofprimary sourcesand scholarly articles,includes the essaycited above by Deborah Bellon women and public sectorunionism. 83Milton Derberet al., Laborin Illinois: The Afuent Years,1945– 1980 (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press,1989), especially chapters 4F, 4G,and 8; Keystone ofDemocracy, ed.Harris and Blatz, 249–252, 270–271, 291– 293, 326– 328; Freeman, Working-class New York ;DebraBernhardt and Rachel Bernstein, OrdinaryPeople, ExtraordinaryLives: A Pictorial History ofWorking People in New YorkCity (New York: NewYork UniversityPress, 2000). 84Joseph Slater, “Public Workers:Labor and the Boston PoliceStrike of 1919,” LaborHistory 38 (1996–1997), 7– 27; Estes, “ ‘I AM AMAN.’” Inaddition, therewas avaluable articleon organizing hospital workersin the non-prot sector,an experiencewith many similaritiesto organizinggovernment workers;see Gregg Michel, “ ‘UnionPower, Soul Power:’Unionizing Johns Hopkins UniversityHospital, 1959–1974,” LaborHistory 38(1996– 1997), 28– 66. 85Thebooks which focusedon public employeesand/ ortheir unions, alongwith the issueof LaborHistory in which they werereviewed, were: Riccucci, Women, Minorities, andUnions in the Public Sector (revd Summer 1991);Murphy, BlackboardUnions (revdFall 1993);Walsh and Mangum, LaborStruggles in the Post Of ce (revdFall 1994);Ruth Jacknow Markowitz, MyDaughter, the Teacher:Jewish Teachers in the New YorkCity Schools (NewBrunswick: RutgersUniversity Press, 1993) (revd Winter 1994– 1995); Johnston, Success WhileOthers Fail (revdWinter 1996– 1997); Lionel Lewis, MarginalWorth: Teaching and the AcademicLabor Market (NewBrunswick: TransactionBooks, 1996)(revd Winter 1996– 1997). Books relatedto this topic, alongwith theirdates reviewed, included: Derber et al., Laborin Illinois (revdSummer 1992);Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheavalin the Quiet Zone: AHistory ofHospital Workers’Union, Local 1199 (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press,1989) (revd Spring 1994);Bernstein, PromisesKept (revd Winter1995– 1996). 86For an articleon public employees, but not unions, in aslightly earlierperiod, seeAdam Fairclough, “‘Beingin the Field ofEducation and Also Beinga Negro… Seems… Tragic:’Black Teachersin the Jim CrowSouth,” Journal ofAmerican History 87(2000), 65–91, which coversthe 20th centuryup to about 1960. 332 RobertShaffer includesno examples ofinterviews with public employeesor their unionleaders. 87 Pennsylvania History ,anexample ofa statehistory journal which regularly publishes articles onworking-class history andthe trade unionmovement, from 1990 to2000 had nonespeci cally onpublic employeesor their unions. 88 The Historyof Education Quarterly in this time period has had anumberof articles onthe teaching profession, butfew on the recent past andonly onefocusing on teachers’ unions. 89 While studiesare being publishedin LaborHistory andelsewhere on the post-1960 trade unionmovement and workforce changes, these have tendedso far tofocus more aroundissues of deindustrialization, ethnicity, immigration, gender,and Southern industrial unionism,rather than onpublic employeesand their unions.A recent collectionof essays by labor historians on U.S. LaborRelations, 1945– 1989, for example, containedjust a sprinkling ofreferences to public employee unionsor bargaining. 90 The mostwide-ranging accountsof the rise ofpublic employee unions,and of the controversy whichsurrounded them, can be found in asmall bookshelfof textbooks and editedcollections published between 1968 and1970 for classroomuse in labor economicsor labor sociology. 91 With theperspective of time, surveytextbooks have begunto include in their discussionsof the 1960s several eventswhich had notpreviously formedpart ofthe standardnarrative ofthe decade. Brinkley’ s 1999 AmericanHistory includesa sectionon thegay liberation movement,an issuenot even mentioned in the1987 editionof that textbook,which had beenco-authored with threeprominent representativesof an earlier generation ofhistorians. 92 The differencesin thetreatment ofgays andlesbians are similarly stark in comparing thetreatment in Boyer etal.’ s 2000 and1990 editions of TheEnduring Vision ,andNorton et al.’ s 1994 and1982 editionsof APeopleand a Nation.93 The Immigration Reform Actof 1965 isanother example ofhow recent textbooks have reevaluated eventsof the 1960s. While the1987 editionof Brinkley’ s American History includeda chart onthe increase in immigration in theprevious twodecades, noting its shift from Europeanto Asian and Latino sources, there was no mention of thelaw which,by eliminating thediscriminatory national origins quotaswhich dated

87Rick Halpern, “Oral Historyand Labor History: AHistoriographicAssessment After Twenty- ve Years,” Journal ofAmerican History 85(1998), 596–610. 88MaurineGreenwald, “ Women and Pennsylvania Working-classHistory,” Pennsylvania History 63 (Winter1996), 5– 16, at 14,mentions women in public employment. 89See:Scott Baker, “TestingEquality: TheNational TeacherExamination and the NAACP’s Legal Campaign to EqualizeTeachers’ Salaries in the South, 1936–63,” History ofEducation Quarterly 35 (1995), 49–64; Jack Dougherty, “‘That’s When WeWere Marching for Jobs:’ Black Teachersand the EarlyCivil Rights Movementin Milwaukee,” History ofEducation Quarterly 38(1998), 121–141; Urban, “Courting the Woman Teacher.” 90U.S.Labor Relations, 1945–1989: Accommodation andCon ict ,ed.Bruce Nissen (New York: Garland, 1990). 91Sorry… No Government Today:Unions vs.City Hall ,ed. Robert Walsh (Boston: Beacon, 1969),and Collective Bargaining forPublic Employees, ed. Marx,have the liveliestprimary sources.Moskow et al., Collective Bargaining in Public Employment, and Collective Bargaining in the Public Service ,ed.Kruger and Schmidt, aretextbooks oriented to the labor economicsor labor sociologyclassroom. Seealso the recent, but technical, When Public Sector WorkersOrganize, ed. Richard Freemanand Casey Ichniowski (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,1988). 92Brinkley, American History (1999), 1081;Richard Current,T. HarryWilliams, Frank Friedel,and Alan Brinkley, American History: ASurvey (NewYork: AlfredA. Knopf, 1987). 93Boyeret al., The Enduring Vision (1990), 1089;Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision (2000), 874;Norton et al., APeople anda Nation ,4th ed.(1994), 1005–1006; Norton etal., APeople anda Nation ,1sted. (1982), 942. Essay Reviews 333 back to1924, madethat shift possible.In the1999 revision, Brinkley notesPresident Johnson’s active supportfor theImmigration Reform Act,which Brinkley accurately calls “oneof the most important piecesof legislation ofthe 1960s, evenif relatively unnoticedat thetime.” 94 With thebene t ofhindsight, textbook authorsshould make similar reevaluations about thesigni cance both ofthe legal changesat thenational andstate levels which began toprovide for collective bargaining for public employees,and of therapid growth ofthese unions in the1960s and1970s. AsKevin Boyle hasrecently argued in areview ofwritings onthe 1960s, historians ofthat decade“ needto look beyondthe story we knowso well,”beyond the familiar protestersand activists, to tell thestories of others: “children,parents, and retirees, factory workers,secretaries, school teachers, and sales clerks.”95 Surely someof those additional storieswill involve thepeople who lled the burgeoning public sectorjobs, and who tried toimprove their jobsthrough unionization.Moreover, these stories will overlap at times with what wealready tell ourstudents about 1960s activism, togive afuller picture ofthe breadth andrami cations of those social movements. Sociologist Paul Johnston,who has also puzzledover theabsence of scholarly attentionto public employee unionism,has suggestedthat the“ public workers’move- mentis hard tolocate in social movementtheory becauseit appears related both tothe ‘old’labor movementand to newer social movements,”so that it has receivedits due from neither end. 96 Movementsorganized aroundclass have becomemarginalized in ourview ofthe 1960s andits aftermath, in whichwe “see”movements based on race, gender,age, “lifestyle,”and foreign policy. It ispast time for suchcompartmentaliza- tion to end. There is yet another reasonto include public employee unionismin ourtextbooks. Justas consideration of the historical background ofchanges in immigration andthe rise ofthe gay andlesbian movementbetter prepares ourstudents to live in themore diverseAmerican societyof the21st century,attention to the changes in theAmerican labor movementcan help them betterunderstand their ownfuture. After all, many of ourstudents will becometeachers, professors, social workers,health care workers, urban planners,police andlegal workers,and other white-collar workerslikely tobe employed at somelevel ofgovernment— jobs in which they may very well beasked to join,or toform, aunion.Even before that point,our students in public collegesand universitiesare likely tohave professorsor teaching assistantsin unions,and talk ofjob actionsand even strikes is not uncommon on college campuses.If college textbooks continueto promote theimage ofa unionmember assimply anindustrial, construction,or agricultural worker,then we will have failed in preparing ourstudents for their ownpotential relationship toor participation in thelabor movement.And all historians wouldagree that helping studentsevaluate anddevelop their ownrelationship tothe social andpolitical movementsof society is animportant part ofthe purpose of a college survey coursein U.S.history.

94Currentet al., American History (1987), 942;Brinkley, American History (1999), 1037. 95KevinBoyle, “TheTimes They Aren’t A-changing,” Reviews in American History 29(2001), 304–309, quotation at 308. 96Johnston, Success WhileOthers Fail , 28. 334 RobertShaffer

Appendix

Thefollowing U.S. history surveytextbooks were reviewed for this study: Paul Boyer, CliffordClark, Jr., Joseph Kett,Neal Salisbury, HarvardSitkoff, and Nancy Woloch, The Enduring Vision: AHistory ofthe American People ,4th edition, vol. 2(Boston: Houghton Mifin, 2000). Alan Brinkley, American History: ASurvey ,10th edition(Boston: McGraw-Hill,1999). Robert Divine, T.H. Breen,George Fredrickson, and R.Hal Williams, AmericaPast and Present , 4th edition, Vol. 2(N.Y.: HarperCollins, 1995). John MackFaragher, Mari Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan Armitage, Out OfMany: A History ofthe American People ,3rdedition, vol. 2(UpperSaddle River, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 2000). David Goldeld, Carl Abbott, VirginiaDeJohn Anderson, Jo Ann Argersinger,Peter Argersinger, William Barney, and Robert Weir, The American Journey: AHistory ofthe United States , vol. 2 (UpperSaddle River, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1998). James Henretta,David Brody, Susan Ware,and MarilynnJohnson, America’s History ,4th edition, vol. 2(Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2000). James KirbyMartin, Randy Roberts, StevenMintz, Linda McMurry,and James Jones, Americaand Its Peoples: AMosaic in the Making ,4th edition, vol. 2(N.Y.: Longman, 2001). GaryNash and Julie Roy Jeffrey, The American People: Creating aNation anda Society ,5th edition, vol. 2(N.Y.: Longman, 2001). MaryBeth Norton, David Katzman, David Blight, HowardChudacoff, Thomas Paterson,William Tuttle,and Paul Escott, APeople anda Nation: AHistory ofthe United States ,6th edition, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifin, 2001). James Roark, MichaelJohnson, PatriciaCline Cohen, Sarah Stage, Alan Lawson, Susan Hartmann, The American Promise:A History ofthe United States ,2ndedition, vol. 2(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002). GeorgeBrown Tindall and David Shi, America:A NarrativeHistory ,5th edition, vol. 2(N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1999). Joshua Freeman, NelsonLichtenstein, Stephen Brier,David Bensman, Susan PorterBenson, David Brundage,Bret Eynon, BruceLevine, and Bryan Palmer[American Social HistoryProject], Who Built America?Working People andthe Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, andSociety ,vol. 2(N.Y.: Pantheon, 1992). NelsonLichtenstein, Susan Strasser,and Roy Rosenzweig[American Social HistoryProject], Who Built America?Working People andthe Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, andSociety ,revisededition, vol. 2(N.Y.: Worth Publishers, 2000). Inseveral additional cases,I also consultedearlier editions of these textbooks. Ialso reviewed National Standardsfor United States History: Exploring the American Experience: Grades5– 12, Expanded Edition (Los Angeles:National Centerfor History in the Schools, UCLA, n.d. [1994]),which is gearedtoward secondaryeducation, and whose compilation was directedby GaryNash and Charlotte Crabtree. Thefollowing textbooks, overviews,and sourcebookson the post-1945or 20th-century U.S. were consulted:

William Chafe, The Unnished Journey: American Since WorldWar II ,4th edition(N.Y.: Oxford UniversityPress, 1999). William Chafe and HarvardSitkoff, (eds.) AHistory ofOur Time:Readings on Postwar America , 4th edition(N.Y.: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995). Robert Grifth, (ed.) MajorProblems in American History Since 1945 (Lexington,MA.: D.C. Heath, 1992). David Horowitzand PeterCarroll, On the Edge: The U.S.in the 20thCentury ,2ndedition (Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1998). WalterLaFeber, Richard Polenberg,and Nancy Woloch, The American Century: AHistory ofthe United States Since 1941 ,4th edition(N.Y.: McGraw-Hill,1992). GeorgeDonelson Moss, Moving On: The American People Since 1945 ,2ndedition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 2001). Norman Rosenbergand Emily Rosenberg, In OurTimes: America Since WorldWar II ,5th edition (EnglewoodCliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1995).