Labor History and the "Sartre Question'' by Herbert Gutman

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • VOLUME 1 NUMBER 5 • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1980 Labor History and the "Sartre Question'' by He r b e r t g u t m a n Some may be surprised to find American working-class history .defined as part of the humanities. What, they may wonder, can the study of changing employment patterns, work processes, employer practices, and trade union activities tell us about the human condition? Humanists, of course, vary in their inter ests. But their concerns often focus on those as pects of everyday experiences which deal with the quality or condition of being human. The changing work experiences of ordinary Ameri cans are central to such discourse. Jean-Paul Sartre tells us why. "The essen tial,” he observed, "is not what 'one' has done to man, but what man does with what 'one' has done to him." Sartre's emphasis redefines the important questions we should ask in studying the history of dependent American social classes: slaves and poor free blacks, immigrant and native-born wage earners, male and female blue- and white-collar workers, and union and non-union laborers. What such men and women experienced (that is, what "one" has done to them) retains interest, but how they interpreted and then dealt with changing patterns of economic, so cial, and political dependence and inequality becomes our major concern. Studying the choices working men and women made and how their behavior affected important historical processes enlarges our understanding of "the condition of being human." That has become very clear to me in the past few summers when I directed an NEH A meeting called to protest strikebreaking turned into Chicago's bloody Haymarket Riot, as this 1886 en seminar (Americans at Work: Changing Social graving from the Bettmann Archive shows. and Cultural Patterns) for trade union officials, mostly local and regional staff and officers. This Mario Puzo. A regular fare of historical writings what 'one' has done to him." summer, men and women from seven states fed each day's discussion, including works by Resistance to dependence and inequality representing workers in chemical, nuclear, tex Susan Benson, David Brody, Alan Dawley, has been an irregular but constant theme in our tile, and steel factories, in the building trades Nathan Huggins, Lawrence Levine, Edmund S. national history. "Dependence," Thomas Jeffer and on the docks, and in government employ Morgan, and E. P. Thompson. son warned, "begets subservience. and suf ment (teachers and unskilled public service These and related materials illustrate how focates the germ of virtue." Americans (espe workers) examined the "Sartre Question" by laboring men and women survived and some cially in this century), however, have associated studying American working-class history. times triumphed in changing American work the escape from dependence much too narrowly Discussions ranged from examining settings. We learn how new workers use old with possessive individualism. seventeenth-century English and African work cultures and how changing conditions of work Addressing the Sartre Question and re processes and cultures to the late twentieth- and life cause working men and women to re examining American working-class history re century worry over the decline of the so-called examine and change settled ways. These proc veals a constant if shifting tension inside and "Protestant work ethic." Earlier patterns of esses have been a constant in our history but outside the workplace between individualist working-class life and labor became vivid after have often been experienced anew by different and collective ways of achieving autonomy. visits to Pawtucket (Rhode Island), Paterson racial and ethnic groups. Sometimes a single individual revealed the (New Jersey), and New York City's Lower East For many reasons, we know too little of the shifting tension within himself. Abraham Cahan Side. The unionists explored the autobiog processes that helped shape the American captured that splendidly in his novel The Rise of raphies of Frederick Douglass and Nate Shaw, working class and the nation. Excessive em David Levinsky. Levinsky had come to America the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, William phasis in the popular culture and in academic in 1885 to seek and find his fortune. A man of Carlos Williams, and e. e. cummings, and the history on "assimilation" and on "achieve wealth, Levinsky feared for himself as he aged: short stories of Lowell (Massachusetts) mill ment" trivializes explanation and meaning. So I can never forget the days of my misery. I women, Herman Melville, I. L. Peretz, and does the failure to probe "what man does with cannot escape from my old self. My past and present do not comport well. David, Eugene Debs, the young Tom Watson, Aunt the poor lad swinging over a Talmud vol Molly Jackson, Carlo Tresca, Nate Shaw, Fanny In this issue ... ume1 at the Preacher's Synagogue, seems to Lou Hamer, and Cesar Chavez. have more in common with my inner iden The recovery of this historic tension among 1 Labor History tity than David Levinsky, the well-known working people—individual vs. collective cloak manufacturer. and the "Sartre Question” solutions—should not be misinterpreted. It by Herbert Gutman Evidence of cooperative ways of achieving does not teach "lessons." Nor does it mean that independence regularly dots the national ex the past should be ransacked for new heroes. The Birth of the AFL/CIO 3 perience. The Philadelphia Journeymen Carpen Instead, it calls attention to the diverse and 4 Labor and the Humanities ters explained their opposition to their em competing traditions that have shaped the ployers in 1791: American working-class experience. "Groups," A Century of Working Women ,5 'Tis one of the invaluable privileges of our the British writer and historian David Caute by Mari Jo Buhle nature, that when we conceive ourselves points out, "who lack a sense of their past re aggrieved, there is an inherent right in us to semble individuals without knowledge of their Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter 6 complain. Self-preservation has in parents—stranded, half-invalidated, insecure. The rediscovered past furnishes us. with a The Shoe Workers of Lynn duced us to enter into an indissoluble 8 union, in order to ward off the blows which diachronic pattern which provides an alterna 9 Dustjackets: Translations are threatened us, by the insolent hand of tive context for thought and action." pampered affluence:—We mean hereafter, Far more important than a "lesson," a con by a firm, independent mode of conduct, to 10 State of the States: text allows us to transform the given in our lives A Rural Odyssey protect each other. into the contingent. Past and present then That theme was not a new one in 1791, and it merge in new ways and strengthen our capacity 12 Deadlines for Grant Applications would be echoed in later generations by men to overcome many of the inequities of late and women as different as Samuel Gompers, twentieth-century America. 13 History Day 14 Dialogue: What Should A College Student Learn? by Edwin J. Delattre and Eugen Weber 16 Humanities Education in the 80s by Geoffrey Marshall 17 An NEH Education Projects Sampler 19 Recent NEH Grant Awards 25 Myths and Realities: Getting an NEH Grant 26 Letters to the Editor 28 About the Authors In the Next Issue FOR INFORMATION ABOUT SUBSCRIPTIONS SEE PAGE 31 Photograph: Photograph: Slater Mill Historic Site a bimonthly review published by the This issue's Dialogue asks the question "What arts degree. National Endowment for the Humanities should a college student learn?" but never More recently, the sciences have won a Chairman: Joseph D. Duffey raises the issue of "Who should go to college?" larger place in the curriculum, the social sci Director of Public Affairs: Barry D. Wanger The general assumption in late fwentieth- ences and arts have been introduced, and many Editor: Judith Chayes Neiman century America is that higher education is for forms of vocational and pre-professional train Editorial Board: everyone who may want it. The fact that such a ing have vied for the attention of students. Harold Cannon, Geoffrey Marshall, B.J. view is so widely held is unique. There is no consensus among humanities Stiles, Armen Tashdinian, Barry D. Wanger, Despite the projections of declining enroll scholars in various fields — or even within Judith Chayes Neiman ment, a higher proportion of young people do fields—about what should be taught and to Editorial Assistant: Linda Blanken attend college along with a new influx of people whom. To make choices even more difficult, en Production Manager: Robert Stock who traditionally did not seek higher education tire new fields and subdisciplines present alter Librarian: Jeanette Coletti in the past. Considering the enormous range of native values and competing claims that cannot Designed by Maria Joseph}/ Schoolman goals, preparation, and abilities in this hetero- be easily adjudicated. geneous group, questions about what should be Bioethics, women's history, ethnic studies, The opinions and conclusions expressed in Humanities learned are inevitable. popular culture, sociobiology, to name a few, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect The early medieval definition of the liberal are founded on newly recognized ideas, meth Endowment policy. Material appearing in Humanities may be freely reproduced although the editor would arts curriculum included only seven subjects. ods, and source material. Each appeals to a appreciate notice and copies for the Endowment's ref The texts were few. And there was general vocal and influential constituency. Each en erence. Use of funds for printing this publication has agreement about the nature of knowledge to be riches the curriculum while making questions of been approved by the Office of Management and Budget.

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