Lexington Books
Pages: 254
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-0-7391-6802-8 • Hardback • September 2013 • $108.00 • (£83.00)
978-0-7391-8013-6 • eBook • September 2013 • $102.50 • (£79.00)
Mitchell Matza received his PhD in history from The Catholic University of America.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: The Ghosts of Upheaval: Chicago Law and Labor in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter Two: Whoopla Ho! : The Creation of the Chicago Federation of Labor and into the Twentieth Century
Chapter Three: Everybody Is Watching Us Now: The CFL and the Dream of a Labor Party
Chapter Four: The Crack of the Whip: The Battle against the Labor Injunction
Chapter Five: The Chicago Controversy: The Landis Award
Chapter Six: A Brisk War over a New Constitution for Illinois
Conclusion: Out of the Twenties and into the New Deal
Bibliography
This book sheds important new light on the Chicago labor movement and its role in shaping Illinois labor legislation, politics, and legal practices toward unions in a neglected era.
— Elizabeth McKillen, The University of Maine
In Intelligent and Honest Radicals, Mitchell Newton-Matza chronicles the origins and early days of the Chicago Federation of Labor, beginning with the events in the nineteenth century that led to its foundation, resulting in a compelling study of a long-neglected historical period in recent Chicago history. Newton-Matza highlights the importance of this period and its later relevance.
— Carmen Gomez-Galisteo, Universidad Camilo José Cela
This is bottom-up history at its best. Newton-Matza argues for a new historical examination of the early twentieth century in Chicago. By demonstrating that the 1920s were not a vast wasteland for labor, but were instead the stepping-stone for the 1930s’ accomplishments, he rebuilds our understanding of the legal and labor history of the period.
— Scott Merriman, Troy University
It was at Chicago’s Labor Day Parade that I first understood what the day truly meant, and was filled with pride for those who built our nation with their hands. Mitchell Newton-Matza takes us back in time to the dramatic evolution of the Chicago Federation of Labor from 1919 through 1933, smoldering with the violent upheavals of its day. He shows why it took a city of ‘big shoulders’ to make it manifest. From the specters of Haymarket and Pullman to the Illinois ‘Con-Con,’ workers tried with growing degrees of desperation to feed their families in the face of low wages and high costs. As Depression-era leaders in Washington like Hattie Caraway fought for the workers of America, so did the men and women of the Chicago labor movement. Newton-Matza tells their story. An intelligent and honest book.
— Nancy Hendricks, Author of Senator Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy
Dr. Newton-Matza has produced an important reconsideration of working-class activity and thought during the 1920s, filling in the gap between a period of well-documented working-class activity in the 1910s and the resurgence of the labor movement in the 1930s. Newton-Matza ably demonstrates that, despite political setbacks, a core labor movement continued to evolve and develop in the 1920s.
— Steven Barleen, Northern Illinois University