Crucible of freedom
Subtitle: workers' democracy in the industrial heartland, 1914-1960
By: Eric Leif Davin.
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Lanham, Md
Language: eng
Number of pages: 453
ISBN-13: 9780739122389; 9780739145722
Subjects: Working class -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Labor -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Industrial relations -- United States -- History -- 20th century; New Deal, 1933-1939; United States -- Social conditions -- 20th century
Description: "This book explores the relationship between democracy and industrialization in United States history. Over the course of the 1930s, the political center almost disappeared as the Democratic New Deal became the litmus test of class, with blue-collar workers providing its bedrock of support while white-collar workers and those in the upper-income levels opposed it. By 1948 the class cleavage in American politics was as pronounced as in many of the Western European centuries - such as France, Italy, Germany, or Britain - with which we usually associate class politics." "Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s that was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America that existed before. They won the political rights of American citizenship that had been previously denied them. They democratized labor-capital relations and gained more economic security than they had ever known. They obtained more economic opportunity for themselves and their children than they had ever known and they created a respect for ethnic workers, which had not previously existed. In the process, class politics redefined the political agenda of America as - for the first time in American history - the political universe polarized along class lines. Eric Leif Davin explores the meaning of the New Deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole."--Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The workers' New Deal; title: The workers mobilize; title: The sources of solidarity, 1914-1930; title: From aliens to Americans; title: Ambiguous allies; title: A choice of champions; title: Storming the Bastille, 1930-1934; title: The workers' real deal, 1935-1937; title: Thermidor, deadlock, and consolidation, 1938-1940; title: Equality, solidarity, and a fair deal, 1940-1948; title: No retreat, no surrender, 1949-1960; title: All that is solid melts into air; title: The crucible of freedom.