When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921

Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-90-04-33234-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 162, 606 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 1015 g

Reihe: Historical Materialism Book Series

The United States looks today much like it did in the late 19th to early 20th century. Open class conflict is disappearing, strikes are becoming rare, unions are declining, corporate power is growing, and work is insecure and contingent. When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921 explores one of the most tumultuous times in United States history. Self-organised workers recomposed their power by devising new strategies and tactics to disrupt the capitalist economy and extract concessions. Mine, railroad, steel, and iron workers pursued a strategy of tension that sometimes erupted into militant class conflict and general strikes in which workers took over and ran a number of cities.

Turning common wisdom on its head, When Workers Shot Back argues that the escalation of working class conflict drives rather than reacts to the consolidation and reorganisation of capital and economic and political reform of the state. Studying the class composition of this period illustrates why workers escalated the intensity of their tactics, even using tactical violence, to extract concessions and reforms when all other efforts to do so were blocked, coopted or repressed.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ovetz, Robert

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wirtschaftssoziologie, Arbeitssoziologie, Organisationssoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Revolutionäre Gruppen und Bewegungen, Bewaffnete Konflikte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables. ix

Introduction. 1

Part 1

The 1877 Railroad Strike

1 Suppressing a Volcano: The 1877 Railroad Strike. 35

2 ‘We Shall Consume Their Shops with Fire’: Working-Class Recomposition in the 1877 Railroad Strike. 114

3 Putting Out the Class on Fire: A New Capital Composition. 148

Part 2

The 1894 Railroad Strike

4 The Nineties Dripped with Blood: The 1894 Railroad Strike. 193

5 Government by Injunction and Bayonet: Working-Class Recomposition in the 1894 Railroad Strike. 252

6 Managing the Class Struggle: A New Capital Composition. 298

Part 3

Revolt of the Rank and File

7 The Dynamite Conspiracy: US Steel vs. the Iron Workers. 325

8 War in Europe, War on Capital: The WWI Wildcat Strike Wave. 369

9 Revolt of the Rank and File: The Steel and Seattle General Strikes. 455

10 The Redneck Army. 485

Conclusion. 555

Bibliography. 563

Index. 583

Über Autor(innen)

Robert Ovetz has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas-Austin. His work focuses on contingent labor and worker self-organisation at the turn of the 20th century. He is a lecturer in political science at San José State University in California USA.