Organizing Workers in the Shadow of Slavery - Global Inequality, Racial Boundaries, Rise of Unions in American

"An original analysis of the relationship between slavery and the labor movement in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the rise of the labor movement in the late nineteenth century, why were American workers unable to organize inclusive trade unions like those formed by their counterparts in the United Kingdom? Comparing American and British capitalism in the port cities of Baltimore and Liverpool and the steel cities of Pittsburgh and Sheffield, Rudi Batzell reveals that the answer lies in the legacies of slavery and entrenched structures of racial inequality. Strikebreaking succeeded more often in the United States because landless Black Americans were, out of economic desperation, more likely to become scabs and fracture the class solidarity of any union movement. Batzell shows, in short, how racism was and is deeply connected to class, migration, and capitalism in a global economy marked by slavery and empire. In emphasizing the geography of economic inequality, this book offers new clarity on the late-nineteenth-century successes and failures of working-class formation. More broadly, Organizing Workers in the Shadow of Slavery makes it clear that the pursuit of justice today will require sustained economic reparations for slavery and colonialism"--

About the author

Rudi Batzell is associate professor of history at Lake Forest College. His research has appeared in journals including Past & Present, Gender & History, and the Journal of Social History.

Product details

• Authors: Rudi Batzell
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 14.05.2025
• EAN: 9780226838762
• ISBN: 978-0-226-83876-2
• No. of pages: 392
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; USA, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, European History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / United States / 19th Century, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Later 19th century c 1850 to c 1899, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Social and cultural history, United States of America, USA, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, History of the Americas, Industrial relations, occupational health and safety, HISTORY / African American & Black, Industrialisation and industrial history, Relating to African American / Black American people