DOCSLIB.ORG

Wendell Phillips, Ira Steward, and the Fate of Labor Reform In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Wendell Phillips, Ira Steward, and the Fate of Labor Reform In LaborHistory, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2001 Eight Hours,Greenbacks and ªChinamenº: WendellPhillips, Ira Steward, and the Fate of Labor Reformin Massachusetts TIMOTHYMESSER-KRUSE* In 1872, “Anniversary Week,”as the annual May conventionseason was known in Boston,gave thepublic ademonstrationof thecontinuing strength of reform in thecity that wasthe cradle ofabolition. Competing for halls, celebrity speakers,and newsprint columnsthat weekwere suffragists, the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance, Unitari- ans,Universalists, evangelists andtract peddlers,the New England Female Moral Reform Society,the YMCA, the Seaman’ s Friend Society,the Children’ s Mission,and ahalf dozenothers, but not lost amidst this clubbing frenzy werethe labor reformers whoattracted muchattention to themselves by ripping their movementapart. In an incidentthat theBoston Globe politely referredto as “ alittle unpleasantness,”the two epitomesof New England’ s labor reformers,Ira Stewardand Wendell Phillips, turned alabor conventioninto ahot shoutingmatch andput an endto their nearly decade- long collaboration that briey transcendedboth classand party. The rstconvention of the newly founded Massachusetts Labor Unionproceeded along theusual course and had carried onlonger than theeight-hour day that wasone ofthe group’ s chiefplanks whenthe last speakerof the evening, Wendell Phillips, ascendedto the podium. By this time thehall that earlier that morning had been lled by well-dressedgentlemen and ladies waspacked by theafter-work addition of“ rough yeomanry, with shaggy browsand beards, hard handsand bronzed faces, or tradesmen with pallid cheeks,thin legs andstooping shoulders.”This crowdgave Phillips an enthusiasticcheer that seta far differenttone from thepolite andsubdued applause of themorning. Phillips didnot deliver afull lecturethat night—his speechesnormally tookseveral hoursand commanded fees exceeding the monthly incomeof most of the workersin theroom, including askilled machinist suchas Steward— but instead took theliberty ofenlarging uponthe resolutions proposed by thedelegated committee, and that waswhen the “ unpleasantness”began. 1 The last resolutionthat Phillips read outaddressed the controversy that had recently eruptedin thepress over theconduct of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (BSL),the nation’ s rst suchagency, that Phillips andthe Eight HourLeague had lobbied theGeneral Court to found three years earlier. Echoingthe recent barrage ofcriticism that had beenleveled against theBSL in thepress, Phillips statedhis “grave objectionsto themanner in which theLabor Bureauof this Statehas beenmanaged,” *Iwould liketo thank David Zondermanfor his generoushelp in gatheringresearch materials forthis paper. Also many thanks to David Roediger,Patricia Cooper, AlexanderSaxton, HerbertHill, and Christopher Friday, who readearlier drafts of this paper in othercontexts and whose comments, criticisms, and suggestionshave inuenced my many revisionssince. 1Boston Globe,May 30,1872; Commonwealth ,June 1, 1872; New YorkHerald ,May 29,1872. ISSN0023-656X print/ ISSN1469-9702 online/ 01/020133–26 Ó 2001Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/00236560120047734 134 T.Messer-Kruse butdefended the bureau’ s purposeand praised its director,the educational reformer HenryKimble Oliver. Heconcluded,“ wehopehe [Oliver] may beretained at his post, andallowed tocall tohis assistanceparties whohave thecon dence and respect of the labor movement.”This brought Ira Stewardto his feetin a“words-run-mad”defense ofhis friendand president of the Eight HourLeague, George McNeill, whohappened tobe the unnamed BSL assistant that Phillips alludedto. Phillips wassoon forced to condemnMcNeill by name for giving “undueprominence to the eight-hour idea”in theBSL’ s latest annual report. In amoment“ dignity andeven decency were forgotten” and“ personal recrimination becamerife.” Steward later admitted that helost control andbehaved ungentlemanly, butdismissed decorum and good manners as qualities of “toriesand the nobility,” not workingmen like himself. Phillips, for his part, “mortied” his listenerswith his “rudespeech” and as he left thehall “spitefully”tore theEight HourLeague poster off the wall. 2 In thewake of these events both rival labor reform organizations slipped intodecline. Phillips’Massachusetts’ s Labor Unionwas short lived anddidn’ t survive theyear, though Phillips remained apopular speakerbefore labor crowdsfor years tocome. Ira Steward’s BostonEight HourLeague likewise shrank toa handfulof eight-hour die-hards.Though Stewardwould later argue that purging Phillips wasnecessary to attract labor support,in themonths after the“ unpleasantness”of Anniversary Week Stewardfound himself ostracizedby Boston’s trade unionmovement. When union ofcials convenedto make preparations for an upcoming July Fourth “eight-hour” parade, they argued for an hour andtook “ twoor threevotes” before they couldagree toadmit Stewardto their meeting. 3 By theFall of1872, labor reformers publicly complained that divisivenessin their ranks wasweakening the movement. “ The real 2Ibid.;Steward’s self-defenseis found in Commonwealth ,June 22,1872; on Steward’s mannerssee E. H.RogersPapers, microlm edition(frame 00386). 3New YorkHerald ,June 10,1872. Boston Globe,June 1, 1872. LaborReform in Massachusetts 135 progress ofLabor Reform,”declared the Labor Reform StateCommittee, a group representingthe most recent attempt at reorganizing thelabor reform coalition, “is of courseretarded by theseparate action ofnumberless knots of well meaning reformers whoare opposedto each other.” 4 Lessthan ayear after theexpulsion of Phillips the editorsof Boston’s labor paper pondered,“ Weare askedif this augustbody [the Eight HourLeague] is extinct.We do not know.” And in what musthave beenan indictment ofSteward and the eight-hour leadership, they continued,“ If it be,we shouldbe glad tohear that somejudicious friends of theworking-men had takenup the question of the hoursof labor, in connectionwith labor arbitration, cooperation,and other questions that, removedfrom thehands of professionalagitators, becomeeasier ofsolution.” By themid-1870s Ira Stewardsadly reportedthat “themost of our few are dispirited”and werelike “theforlorn hopeof a besiegedfort.” 5 Suchwas the inglorious endingof what had begunas one of the most promising cross-classlabor reform coalitions ofthe Reconstruction era. * * * * * * The building ofMassachusetts’ s coalition ofworkers and elite reformers wasnot an easyor inevitable achievement.At theoutset of William LloydGarrison’ s abolitionist campaign in the1830s, both themovement for theimmediate emancipation ofslaves andthat ofworkersstriving toretain their artisans’independence against theencroach- mentof industrialization wereoften deeply suspiciousof one another. Early in their careerssuch leading abolitionists asPhillips andGarrison expressedtheir faith in marketplace competition andeven praised poverty for therigorous discipline it en- forced.“ Poverty,”Phillips explained, “is thespur that winsthe race.” 6 Likewise,labor leadersoften dismissed elite abolitionists assentimental philan- thropists whooverlooked the oppression of workers upon their owndoorstep in their eagernessto uplift thedistant slave. For their part elite abolitionists accusedlabor spokesmenof racism andignorance andobjected to any comparison betweenthe conditionof blacks in slavery andthe problems ofnorthern workers. Butwhile thepolitical andideological distancebetween the leaders of the early abolitionist crusadeand radical workerswas daunting, it proved surmountable.Indeed, over thecourse of the next 30 years abolitionists andworkers would draw more closely together in their outlooksuntil, by theimmediate post-waryears, these two former antagonistshad joinedforces within several grand labor coalitions.By thelate 1860s, nearly every surviving abolitionist leader had endorsedthe labor movement’s central demand:the legislated reductionof hours in theworking day.Even leaders who seemed least sympathetic tolabor’ s demandsin the1830s, suchas Garrison, Henry Ward 4The TradesJournal andFinancial Record (Boston), Oct. 5,1872. 5TradesJournal andFinancial Record (Boston), Jan. 25,1873. This paper was the successorto the Boston American Workman ;IraSteward to FriederickSorge, n.d. (probably 1876),Ira Steward Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. 6SeeGilbert Hobbs Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse,1830± 1844 (NewYork: Harcourt,Brace & World, Inc., 1933);Ronald G.Walters, American Reformers,1815± 1860 (NewYork: Hill &Wang, 1978),27– 29; Jonathan A.Glickstein,“ Povertyis not Slavery: AmericanAbolitionists and the Competitive Labor Market,”in LewisPerry and MichaelFellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists ,(Baton Rouge:Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1979), 195– 206; James BrewerSteward, Holy Warriors:The Abolitionists andAmerican Slavery (NewYork: Hill &Wang, 1976),35. Phillips’ quote canbe found in Glickstein,“ Povertyis Not Slavery,”200. 136 T.Messer-Kruse Beecher,and Lydia Maria Child,came aroundafter thewar andpublicly supportedthe labor reform movement.After the war it waswidely recognizedthat labor’s closestallies outsideof theranks ofworkerswere the men and women who had formerly fought for theemancipation ofslaves. 7 Suchlabor reform coalitions didnot arise by themselvesbut were consciously constructedby thelabor leadersof the period. In Massachusettsmuch of thecredit for building thelabor reform coalition that wasthe Eight HourLeague goes to
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Industrial Democracy: Made in the U.S.A
    Industrial democracy: made in the U.S .A. Labor-management cooperation to improve the quality of products, worklife, and the effectiveness of companies can be traced to the early 19th century HENRY P. GUZDA According to industrial relations expert Milton Derber, par- ufacturing enterprises run by the Moravian religious order ticipatory management programs, shop committee plans, at Wachovia, N .C., and Bethlehem, Pa ., groups of jour- works councils, and similar employer-employee cooperative neymen often cooperated with master craftsmen, suggesting efforts can be classified as "industrial democracy ." I There improvements in product quality and proposing methods for was a proliferation of such programs in the 1970's, spawning increased output. These efforts, stated historian Carl Bri- a plethora of books, articles, and pamphlets which dissected denbaugh, "were conducted on a wage earning economy; the concepts and drew philosophical guidelines for their they were not communistic." It may have been the first implementation and expected results. Some publications cite American experiment in participatory management .' these experiments as unique or novel, but, as Sanford Jacoby But the true antecedents of our modern system of labor of the University of California at Los Angeles management relations were formed in the 19th century, coinciding with school noted, the common presumption that these are new rapid industrial growth . At one time, class distinctions be- solutions to lagging productivity is wrong .2 "The hand of tween employers and journeymen were vague and ill- the past," said historian Richard B . Morris, "is still writ defined-most masters graduated from working ranks- large in . the labor relations of this country, and the early until rapidly expanding economies of scale soon drew de- concepts and procedures often forecast the shape of things finable, if not bold, lines.
    [Show full text]
  • How Industrial Relations Informs the Teaching of Ethics in Human Resource Management
    Southern Business Review Volume 32 Issue 2 Article 4 How Industrial Relations Informs the Teaching of Ethics in Human Resource Management Charles G. Smith Otterbein College Hugh D. Hindman Appalachian State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sbr Part of the Business Commons, and the Education Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Charles G. and Hindman, Hugh D. () "How Industrial Relations Informs the Teaching of Ethics in Human Resource Management," Southern Business Review: Vol. 32 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sbr/vol32/iss2/4 This article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Southern Business Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. How Industrial Relations Informs the Teaching of Ethics In Human Resource Management Charles G. Smith and Hugh D. Hindman Most people want to do also because they directly avoid the historical and the “right thing.” This is true affect people and, so, have the philosophical backdrop that in business as well as in life. It potential to bring significant give texture and substance to is the duty of business good or significant harm to these decisions, an under- educators to provide a both individuals and to standing of the intellectual framework for students and society. To better inform the antecedents of today’s peers to judge the operational, debate over ethicality of HR employment relationship, and legal, and ethical rigor of practices, the authors suggest their inherent tensions will managerial decisions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Labor Problem and the Social Catholic Movement in France
    THE LABOR PROBLEM AND THE SOCIAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN FRANCE ..s·~· 0 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW VORIC • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALlAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN &: CO., LtMITIID LONDON • BOMBAY • CALC1/TTA MBLBOURNII THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THE LABOR PROBLEM AND THE SOCIAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN FRANCE A Study in the History of Social Politics BY PARKER THOMAS MOON Instructor in History in Columbia University Jat\tl !llOtk THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 COPYBIGilT, 1921, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and printed. •Published Ma.y, 1921. !'BIN I'Bb lll' 'l.'lm l1NlTIII> S'l.'AflS OJ Alo!UIOA TO MY MOTHER PREFACE Nor until quite recently: in the United States, has anything like general public attention been directed to one of the most powerful and interesting of contemporary movements toward the solution of the insistent problem of labor unrest. There is a real need for an impartial historical study of this movement and a critical analysis of the forces which lie behind it. Such a need the present narrative does not pretend to satisfy com­ pletely; but it is hoped that even a preliminary survey, such as this, ·will be of interest to those who concern themselves with the grave social and economic problems now confronting po­ litical democracy. The movement in question,- generally known as the Social Catholic movement,- has expanded so rapidly in the last few decades that it may now be regarded as a force compar­ able in magnitude and in power to international Socialism, or to Syndicalism, or to the cooperative movement. On the eve of the Great War, Social Catholicism was represented by or­ ganizations in every civilized country where there was any considerable Catholic population.
    [Show full text]
  • Wendell Phillips Wendell Phillips
    “THE CHINAMAN WORKS CHEAP BECAUSE HE IS A BARBARIAN AND SEEKS GRATIFICATION OF ONLY THE LOWEST, THE MOST INEVITABLE WANTS.”1 For the white abolitionists, this was a class struggle rather than a race struggle. It would be quite mistaken for us to infer, now that the civil war is over and the political landscape has 1. Here is what was said of the Phillips family in Nathaniel Morton’s NEW ENGLAND’S MEMORIAL (and this was while that illustrious family was still FOB!): HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS shifted, that the stereotypical antebellum white abolitionist in general had any great love for the welfare of black Americans. White abolitionist leaders knew very well what was the source of their support, in class conflict, and hence Wendell Phillips warned of the political danger from a successful alliance between the “slaveocracy” of the South and the Cotton Whigs of the North, an alliance which he termed “the Lords of the Lash and the Lords of the Loom.” The statement used as the title for this file, above, was attributed to Phillips by the news cartoonist and reformer Thomas Nast, in a cartoon of Columbia facing off a mob of “pure white” Americans armed with pistols, rocks, and sticks, on behalf of an immigrant with a pigtail, that was published in Harper’s Weekly on February 18, 1871. There is no reason to suppose that the cartoonist Nast was failing here to reflect accurately the attitudes of this Boston Brahman — as we are well aware how intensely uncomfortable this man was around any person of color.
    [Show full text]
  • American Abolitionists and the Problem of Resistance, 1831-1861
    From Moral Suasion to Political Confrontation: American Abolitionists and the Problem of Resistance, 1831-1861 James Stewart In January, 1863, as warfare raged between North and South, the great abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips addressed an enormous audience of over ten thousand in Brooklyn, New York. Just days earlier, President Abraham Lincoln, in his Emancipation Proclamation, had defined the destruction of slavery as the North’s new and overriding war aim. This decision, Phillips assured his listeners, marked the grand culmination “of a great fight, going on the world over, and which began ages ago...between free institutions and caste institutions, Freedom and Democracy against institutions of privilege and class.”[1] A serious student of the past, Phillips’s remarks acknowledged the fact that behind the Emancipation Proclamation lay a long history of opposition to slavery by not only African Americans, free and enslaved, but also by ever- increasing numbers of whites. In Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil and Surinam, slave insurrection helped to catalyze emancipation. Abolition in the United States, by contrast, had its prelude in civil war among whites, not in black insurrection, a result impossible to imagine had not growing numbers of Anglo-Americans before 1861 chosen to resist the institution of slavery directly and to oppose what they feared was its growing dominion over the nation’s government and civic life. No clearer example of this crucial development can be found than Wendell Phillips himself. 1 For this reason his career provides a useful starting point for considering the development of militant resistance within the abolitionist movement and its influence in pushing northerners closer first, to Civil War, and then to abolishing slavery.
    [Show full text]
  • International Socialist Review (1900) Vol 05
    TH INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW VOL. V OCTOBER, 1904 NO. 4 Employers' Associations. ANEW factor has entered into the industrial struggle of labor with capital. There has been a growth of concentrated cap- ital for the past twenty-five years. The appearance of con- sciously organized capital, organized for the purpose of dealing with the labor question, is entirely different and is of recent de- velopment. In 1895 in Atlanta, Georgia, Thomas H. Martin, the editor of Dixie, advocated in an editorial the consolidating and organiz- ing of manufacturing interests and the adopting of a united policy in order to meet the aggressions of labor. This suggestion was carried out and the National Association of Manufacturers had its birth. This body now consists not only of a national organization with 3,000 members in thirty-nine of the different states but we find that international relations are also maintained. "There may be some of our members," says its president Mr. Parry, "who have been modest enough to suppose that the National Associa- tion was merely national. In reality it is international in its work and scope now as it always has been." In the ninth annual report of this association one of its objects is stated. It is "an organiza- tion "which is practically an insurance against populistic and so- cialistic experiments." The Manufacturers' Association is not the only one of its class. The Metal Trades Association and various others also represent the interests of employers. While these organizations have existed for a half dozen, years at least, there has recently been formed and perfected a national association of all employers for the object of dealing with the labor problem in a unified manner.
    [Show full text]
  • Lincoln and the Abolitionists Allen C
    History Faculty Publications History Fall 2000 Lincoln and the Abolitionists Allen C. Guelzo Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/histfac Part of the United States History Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. The definitive version was published as Guelzo, Allen C. "Lincoln and the Abolitionists," The iW lson Quarterly, 8(2000), 58-70. This is the authors's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/histfac/1 This open access article is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lincoln and the Abolitionists Abstract It has always been one of the ironies of the era of the Civil War and the end of slavery in the United States that the man who played the role of Great Emancipator of the slaves was so hugely mistrusted and so energetically vilified by the party of abolition. Abraham Lincoln, whatever his larger reputation as the liberator of more than three million black slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation, has never entirely shaken off the er putation of being something of a half-heart about it. [excerpt] Disciplines History | United States History This article is available at The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/histfac/1 5. "FIENDS...FACING ZIONWARDS": ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S RELUCTANT EMBRACE OF THE ABOLITIONISTS It has always been one of the ironies of the era of the Civil War and the end of slavery in the United States that the man who played the role of Great Emancipator of the slaves was so hugely mistrusted and so energetically vilified by the party of abolition.
    [Show full text]
  • ABOLITIONISTS and the CONSTITUTION Library of Congress/Theodore R
    ABOLITIONISTS AND THE CONSTITUTION Library of Congress/Theodore R. Davis R. Congress/Theodore of Library The Constitution allowed Congress to ban the importation of slaves in 1808, but slave auctions, like the one pictured here, continued in southern states in the 19th century. Two great abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison and deep-seated moral sentiments that attracted many Frederick Douglass, once allies, split over the Constitu- followers (“Garrisonians”), but also alienated many tion. Garrison believed it was a pro-slavery document others, including Douglass. from its inception. Douglass strongly disagreed. Garrison and Northern Secession Today, many Americans disagree about how to in- Motivated by strong, personal Christian convic- terpret the Constitution. This is especially true with our tions, Garrison was an uncompromising speaker and most controversial social issues. For example, Ameri- writer on the abolition of slavery. In 1831, Garrison cans disagree over what a “well-regulated militia” launched his own newspaper, The Liberator, in means in the Second Amendment, or whether the gov- Boston, to preach the immediate end of slavery to a ernment must always have “probable cause” under the national audience. In his opening editorial, he in- Fourth Amendment to investigate terrorism suspects. formed his readers of his then radical intent: “I will These kinds of disagreements about interpretation are not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard!” not new. In fact, they have flared up since the Consti- Garrison also co-founded the American Anti- tutional Convention in 1787. One major debate over the Slavery Society (AAS) in Boston, which soon had Constitution’s meaning caused a rift in the abolitionist over 200,000 members in several Northern cities.
    [Show full text]
  • Barbash, Jack
    The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Labor Series PROFESSOR JACK BARBASH Interviewer: Morris Weisz Initial interview date: May 2, 1994 Copyright 1998 AD T TABLE OF CONTENTS ackground orn and raised in New York City New York University Early Employment in Education 1930,s The Educational Alliance Teaching classes for Unions -PA,s -orkers Education Young Socialists League Clothing -orkers Unions Labor personalities New York University 193.-1930 Professors Dissertation1 Employer Attitudes and Methods of the Belligerent Employer -ashington2 D.C.4 National Labor Relations oard 1930-1940 La Folllette Committee Railway Labor Act Authors of labor issues Congress of Industrial Organisation 8CIO9 Communist labor development Socialists Office of Education -ashington2 D.C4 -ar Production oard 8-P 9 1940- Labor )nions in Action Unionism as an institution of capitalism Comparison with cultural anthropology 1 Observations Labor attaches European views on trade unions There+s More to More than More -alter Reuther Trade )nions and Economic Policy European labor leaders and labor philosophy AFL-CIO Swedish/German experience International Industrial Relations Association Foreign Tours > worldwide 1962 Reports on Labor Attaches The @Saposs thingA Cost of loving studies European and American concepts of labor relations European management and trade unions American management and trade unions Professors and industrial relations Transition from socialism to capitalism Cohen-Sachs disagreement Foreign Service Officers Academics Foreign Service Institute Turning from study of social systems to economics The Nobel PriBe Embassies need for economic analysis American economic publications University of -isconsin4 Professor of Labor and Economic Thought INTERVIEW -: This is Morris Weisz and this is the first side of the first tape of my interview with my old friend Jac/ Barbash in Madison, Wisconsin, on May 2 0and 12, 1994.
    [Show full text]
  • Minardi on Gradert, 'Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination'
    H-Nationalism Minardi on Gradert, 'Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination' Review published on Monday, June 14, 2021 Kenyon Gradert. Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination. American Beginnings, 1500-1900 Series. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. 256 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-226-69402-3. Reviewed by Margot Minardi (Reed College)Published on H-Nationalism (June, 2021) Commissioned by Evan C. Rothera (University of Arkansas - Fort Smith) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=56207 Reading Kenyon Gradert’s though-provoking new book,Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination, made me realize that I had completely overlooked the four hundredth anniversary of the Mayflower landing. Granted, most of us had other things to think about in 2020. Nevertheless, the oversight was startling for me, a Massachusetts-born-and-bred historian of early America for whom the discovery, in a college history class, that 1620 wasn’t the beginning of American history was a memorable shock. Today, though, the Pilgrims and the Puritans who followed them to Massachusetts don’t seem as significant as they used to in popular historical memory. Over the past year, the latest front in the culture wars has been dominated by a contest between 1619 and 1776 as the origin points of American history—with the Pilgrims receding into a distant background.[1] For New Englanders in the nineteenth century, the Pilgrim and Puritan origins of the United States would be nearly impossible to forget, even (or especially) in a time of national crisis. Gradert focuses on a particular group of nineteenth-century New Englanders—those who were active in, or at least sympathetic to, the movement against slavery—to examine how their perceptions of Puritan roots shaped their antislavery consciousness.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 “`And There Shall Be No More Sea.' William Lloyd Garrison and The
    “`And There Shall Be No More Sea.’ William Lloyd Garrison and the Transatlantic Abolitionist Movement.” Richard J. Blackett When in early 1865 the Stars and Stripes were once again raised over Fort Sumter William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson were there to witness the symbolic reuniting of the country at the end of a brutal civil war. It seemed a fitting culmination to the work of the two men who together had struggled for over thirty years to keep the transatlantic abolitionist movement together and who were considered by their peers to be the two pivotal figures in the struggle to win freedom for slaves in the United States. Between them they had crisscrossed the Atlantic half a dozen times in a quest to rally public opinion in favor of abolition inspired in part by Garrison’s bold internationalist declaration: “Our Country is the World—Our Countrymen Are Mankind.” Their efforts did not always pay immediate dividends, but standing at the site where the first shots in the war were fired, both men could take some comfort in the fact that their persistence and commitment to the cause of emancipation had finally borne fruit. The movement had wobbled at times and on occasion had even cracked, but the frequent exchange of visits that they and others made had managed to maintain a semblance of unity in an otherwise fractious alliance. The exchange of letters, books and pamphlets were crucial means of contact, but the glue that held the movement together was the exchange of visits during which friendships were forged and renewed, money raised and attempts made to influence public opinion in favor of emancipation.
    [Show full text]
  • Industrial Relations Section in Historical Perspective: 1922–2015
    PRINCETON UNIVERSITY’S INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SECTION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: 1922–2015 LAWRENCE DAMIAN ROBINSON 1 COVER: An image of U.S. Steel Corporation is part of a collection of photos entitled “America at Work” (presented to the Industrial Relations Section upon the opening of Firestone Library in 1948-49). Copyright © 2016 by the Industrial Relations Section ISBN 0-9773544-9-0 Designed by Laurel Masten Cantor, University creative director, Office of Communications, Princeton University Edited by Beth Chute 2 CONTENTS Forewords ..........................................................................................5 Author’s Preface .................................................................................9 Introduction ..................................................................................... 13 Foundations ..................................................................................... 17 From the Roaring ’20s to the New Deal Economy ........................... 41 The War Years .................................................................................69 J. Douglas Brown ............................................................................ 97 The Postwar Decades: From “Happy Days” to Revolution ............................................................................. 107 The 1980s and Beyond, or Back to the Future .................................141 Princeton University’s Industrial Relations Section in Historical Perspective ...........................................................
    [Show full text]