View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2011 The olitP ics of Labor Militancy in Minneapolis, 1934-1938 Kristoffer Smemo University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Smemo, Kristoffer, "The oP litics of Labor Militancy in Minneapolis, 1934-1938" (2011). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 719. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/719 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE POLITICS OF LABOR MILITANCY IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1934­1938 A Thesis Presented by KRISTOFFER O. SMEMO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS September 2011 University of Massachusetts/ Five College Graduate Program in History © Copyright by Kristoffer O. Smemo 2011 All Rights Reserved THE POLITICS OF LABOR MILITANCY IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1934­1938 A Thesis Presented by KRISTOFFER O. SMEMO Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________________________________ Christian G. Appy, Chair ____________________________________________________ Gerald Friedman, Member ____________________________________________________ Francis G. Couvares, Member ________________________________________________ Joye L. Bowman, Chair History Department DEDICATION For my parents. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Simply put, this thesis would not have been possible without the guidance, expertise, and support of an incredibly generous community of scholars. Chris Appy directed this thesis with patience and a keen eye towards refining both my arguments and writing. The insightful comments and critiques Jerry Friedman offered at every stage of the writing and research process were invaluable. Frank Couvares was always happy to listen as I worked out new ideas and also cleared up points of confusion. Peter Rachleff, and Dave Riehle readily answered my questions about Minneapolis labor history and pointed me towards a host of important archival resources. I owe a tremendous intellectual debt to Bruce Laurie. He urged me early in the early stages of this project to rethink the significance of the 1938 mid‐term elections in tandem with the problems of labor factionalism. Since then I have benefited enormously from his incisive criticisms of my work and our many discussions about the politics of the New Deal. Fellow graduate students Richard Anderson and Gina Talley also graciously read through many dense (and painfully long) rough drafts of individual chapters. I also want to thank the University of Massachusetts History Department Graduate Studies Committee for funding this research. The staffs at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and at the Minnesota Historical Society were both exceedingly helpful handling my requests and answering my questions. Thanks also to Carol Strong of the Minneapolis Elections Office and Deb Bohler of the Hennepin County Elections for compiling and scanning election data. Finally, a very special thanks goes to Alanna Miki for all of her love and support. v ABSTRACT THE POLITICS OF LABOR MILITANCY IN MINNEAPOLS, 1934‐1938 SEPTEMBER 2011 KRISTOFFER O. SMEMO, B.A., HAMLINE UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Christian Appy The militancy that helped prompt federal labor reform and the electoral incorporation of industrial workers exposed serious political fault lines within the so‐called New Deal coalition. In particular, militancy and factionalism in the labor movement compromised the early electoral victories of the ruling Farmer‐Labor Party in Minnesota and New Deal Democrats nationally. Yet the landslide victory of Republican candidates in 1938 in Minnesota, as well as across the industrial North, was not a repudiation of the New Deal or the labor movement. These Republicans refashioned their party platform to accommodate key parts of the New Deal, including recognizing the legitimacy of collective bargaining. Liberal Republicans harnessed popular support New Deal social policy, but unlike Democrats they were free to criticize the supposed “excesses” of the New Deal‐ namely a militant and politicized labor movement. Minneapolis provides one case study to reconsider the impact of labor militancy on the development of New Deal liberalism. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................................v ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................................vi CHAPTER 1. LABOR MILITANCY IN MINNEAPOLIS .........................................................................................1 2. CLASS STRUGGLE IN MINNESOTA ................................................................................................6 Introduction...................................................................................................................................6 The Political Economy of Transportation in Minneapolis .........................................6 Radical Farmers, Organized Workers..............................................................................10 Roots of an Insurgency...........................................................................................................16 Confrontation .............................................................................................................................23 Aftermath.....................................................................................................................................40 3. THE POLITICS OF MAKING MINNEAPOLIS A UNION TOWN, 1935‐1936.................44 Introduction................................................................................................................................44 Local 574 in Exile......................................................................................................................45 The Farmer‐Labor Party and the Popular Front.........................................................68 The Apogee of Farmer‐Laborism.......................................................................................77 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................89 4. THE CONTESTED TERRAIN OF LIBERALISM ........................................................................90 Finding Labor’s Place in the Second New Deal............................................................90 Farmer‐Laborism Divided ....................................................................................................94 Labor Factionalism in Minneapolis................................................................................ 101 The Contested Terrain of Liberalism ............................................................................ 109 Farmer‐Laborism in Crisis................................................................................................. 118 Backlash..................................................................................................................................... 133 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 137 5. EPILOGUE ........................................................................................................................................... 140 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................................... 145 vii CHAPTER 1 LABOR MILITANCY IN MINNEAPOLIS Minneapolis isn’t like another city. Not like New York. It’s not cosmopolitan. Nor it is like, say Detroit. Detroit is like a big company town‐ held down to the belt and the sales talk. Minneapolis is far more varied and more headstrong. Nor is it like Pittsburgh, which is crowded and smoky and tough like the steel it makes. Nothing like Kansas City, which has tried to be like Boston. Nor like Boston‐ St. Paul is proverbially the Boston of the Midwest. Minneapolis is like none of them. And yet, it shares the American common denominator with each of them.1 During the Great Depression a deep current of social conflict coursed through every major US city and was, according to journalist Charles Walker, the “American common denominator.” Minneapolis was no different. Waves of strikes and protests throughout the 1930s wracked the city as unemployment skyrocketed and employers slashed wages. In 1934, Minneapolis became one of the flashpoints of a resurgent American labor movement. All too often, historians treat the bloody Minneapolis trucking strikes of that year either as an isolated event or part of an undifferentiated national trend of worker discontent. What these accounts typically ignore are the politics of labor militancy. There is a deeper and more complicated story beneath the trucking strikes that illuminates how significantly class struggle during the Depression reshaped the contours of