Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939
Most chapters in this ambitious study of Chicago's ethnic workers between the wars could themselves be the basis for a book: workers' encounter with mass culture; their response to 1920s welfare capitalism; the Depression's effects; the turn toward Democratic politics; and the embrace of organized labor. Cohen has used a vast range of sources to show that these episodes are interrelated and to make the overall point that far from bobbing upon history's tides, workers were agents of their own fortune during a period opening with labor in disarray and ending in strength. If on some points her arguments are strained, the richness of Cohen's book makes it an essential purchase for research libraries, and a useful item in many other academic collections.- Robert F. Nardini, N. Chichester, N.H.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.