Labor and Urban Populism

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Aiken, Katherine G., "'It May Be Too Soon to Crow': Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company Efforts to Defeat the Miners' Union, 1890-1900." Western Historical Quarterly 1993 24(3): 308-331.  About labor wars of northern Idaho in the 1890s.  Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining Company in Kellogg destroyed the Miners' Union of the Coeur d'Alene by using their economic clout to coerce community leaders into cooperation and allying with state officials to counteract the union's successful Populist politics. Deadly violence, martial law, federal investigation, and establishment of a suffocating company union ensued. America: History and Life, 32:4603

Bernstein, Irving, ed., "Samuel Gompers and Free Silver, 1896." Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 29(3):394‑400. December 1942.   Relationship of organized labor to Populism. Gompers saw free silver as threat to trade unionism. Populists make it key issue in 1896, which alienated Gompers.  

Birmingham, Alphonse J. "The Knights of Labor and the Farmers' Alliances." M.A. thesis, Catholic U, 1955.  

Brundage, David Thomas. "The Making of Working-Class Radicalism in the Mountain West: Denver, Colorado, 1880-1903." Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, 1982.  DAI, 43, no. 07A, (1982): 2423.  Denver's population, commerce, and industries grew dramatically, 1880-1900.  Poverty, exploitation, and structured class inequality were the results.  The militance of Denver's labor movement was profoundly affected by the radical wing of the Populist Party in Colorado.   

Clements, Roger V. "The Farmers' Attitude Toward British Investment in American Industry." Journal of Economic History 1955 15(2): 151-159.  The flow of British capital into American industry around 1890 deepened the farmers' distrust of the "money power," and was taken as a formal alliance of British and American finance to create and exploit monopoly.  America: History and Life, 0:2776  

Commons, John R., et. al. History of Labour in the United States. Vol 2. 620 p. New York: Macmillan and Co. 1921.    

Cox, LaWanda F. "The American Agricultural Wage Earner, 1865-1900: The Emergence of a Modern Labor Problem." Agricultural History. 22(2):95-114. April 1948.   Shows ever‑worsening plight of the farm wage earner, and indicates another grievance taken up by the farmer and the Populists.  

DeLeon, Richard E., and Powell, Sandra S. "Growth Control and Electoral Politics: The Triumph of Urban Populism in San Francisco." Western Historical Quarterly. 42:307-31. June 1989. 

Destler, Chester McArthur. "Consummation of a Labor-Populist Alliance in Illinois, 1894." Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 27(4):589-602. March 1941.   

Dubofsky, Melvyn. "The Origins of Western Working Class Radicalism, 1890-1905." Labor History 1966 7(2): 131-154.  Rapid economic and social change in the American West resulted in a "social polarization" and the development of a class ideology which followed the Marxian pattern of development. The shift from unionism to radicalism by the Western Federation of Miners, is traced, and the shift is related to the historical trends of Populism, trade unionism, the growth of modern technology and corporate capitalism, and the alliance between corporate capitalism and government. America: History and Life, 3:2626

Fink, Leon. Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1983.  Derived from "Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor in Local Politics, 1886-1896." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1977.  DAI, 38, no. 06A, (1977): 3679.   

Gaboury, William J. "From Statehouse to Bull Pen; Idaho Populism and the Coeur d'Alene Troubles of the 1890s." Pacific Northwest Quarterly 1967 58(1): 14-22.  America: History and Life, 6:2940

Gerteis, Joseph Howard. 'Class and the Color Line: The Sources and Limits of Interracial Class Coalition, 1880--1896." Ph.D. dissertation (Sociology), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999.  DAI, 60, no. 12A (1999): 4611.  The movement dialogues of class equality among the Knights of Labor, the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party did not extend to what was commonly referred to as "social equality."  Their practical activities were important in determining the degree to which the interracial coalitions were sustainable.  

Gilman, Rhoda R. "Eva McDonald Valesh: Minnesota Populist." Women of Minnesota: Selected Biographical Essays (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1977): 55-76.  Eva McDonald Valesh was a leading figure in Minnesota's labor and agrarian political movements.   She supported the Knights of Labor, the Farmers' Alliance, and the People's Party as a journalist and lecturer.  She was elected State Lecturer of the Minnesota Alliance, was a national organizer for the People's Party, and worked for William Jennings Bryan in 1896.  That same year, she moved to New York City where she worked as a journalist and became involved with the Women's Trade Union League. America: History and Life, 16A:5403

Gilmore, Glenda G. "Agrarian Unrest and Urban Remedies: The Progressive Solution in North Carolina." Master's thesis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1985.  106 pp. 

Glazer, Sidney. "Labor and Agrarian Movements in Michigan, 1876-1896." Ph.D. dissertation, U of Michigan, 1932. 

______. "Patrons of Industry in Michigan." Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 24:185-94. September 1937.  

Goldschmidt, Eli. "Labor and Populism: New York City, 1891-1896." Labor History 1972 13(4): 520-532. New York City labor opposed free silver.  They believed that Populism was essentially an agricultural movement with little to offer to labor. America: History and Life, 11A:6180

Grob, Gerald N. "The Knights of Labor, Politics, and Populism." Mid-America 1958 40(1): 3-21.  The failure of the Populists to win labor support through an alliance with the once-powerful Knights demonstrated that workers for the most part had finally abandoned their absorption in reform and the older equal rights and antimonopoly heritage." America: History and Life, 0:2887

_____. Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement, 1865-1900. Evanston: Northwestern U P, 1961.   

Gutman, Herbert G. "Black Coal Miners and the Greenback-Labor party in Redeemer Alabama: 1878-1879." Labor History 1969 10(3): 506-535.  Presents 26 letters from black and white coal miners who lived in the Birmingham steel region of Alabama that provide a description of the new Alabama working class and its living and working conditions. America: History and Life, 7:817

Hooper, Osman Castle. "The Coxey Movement in Ohio." Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly. 9:155-76. Oct 1900.  

Hurt, R. Douglas. "Populist-Endorsed Judges and the Protection of Western Labor." Journal of the West 1978 17(1): 19-26.  Though commonly associated with agrarianism, the Populist movement also supported urban laborers (both out of philosophy and necessity) as shown by the pro-labor rulings of populist-endorsed judges of state supreme courts in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, and Montana, 1893-1902. America: History and Life, 17A:2820

Jacobson, J. Mark. "The Farm and Factory Conflict in American History." Current History. 32:312-18. May 1930.  

James, Edward T. "American Labor and Political Action, 1865-1896: The Knights of Labor and Its Predecessors." Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1954.  ADD, W1954, (1954): 0233. 

James, Edward T. "T.V. Powderly, A Political Profile." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1975 99(4): 443-459.  Originally a supporter of the Greenback-Labor party, Powderly became national head of the Knights of Labor in 1879. Its membership peaked around 1886, but shortly thereafter the Knights became more small-town and political-reform oriented.  Powderly became a Republicans in 1894.  President McKinley appointed him Commissioner-General of Immigration in 1897. 

Khan, Rais Ahmad. "The People's Party (USA) and the Working Class." University Studies. (Pakistan) 1968 5(1):33-48.   Organized labor failed to support Populism because it lacked a class consciousness. America: History and Life, S:2803  

Kane, Ralph J. "The Paradox of California Populism." North Dakota Quarterly 1971 39(3): 34-46. Finds California Populism split between urban, socialist-oriented, and rural, capitalist-oriented groups. Because California was generally prosperous in the 1890s and farmers were largely entrepreneurial in outlook, they were not attracted to the monetary or conspiratorial theories of Plains-State Populism.  Urban Populists, leaning toward socialism, worked uneasily with their rural counterparts. California Populism more resembled Progressivism than other varieties of Populism. America: History and Life, 9:2385

Kauer, Ralph. "The Workingmen's Party in California." Pacific Historical Review. 13:278-291. September 1944.   Populists and workingmen.

Kaufman, Stuart. "Samuel Gompers and the Populist Movement." Master's thesis, U of Florida, 1964. 

Keller, Morton. "A Passion for Politics: The Political Machine vs. The Populist Movement." Social Education 1977 41(6): 507-508.  Compares politics in urban and rural areas. America: History and Life, 15A:7167

Kolnick, Jeffrey David, "A Producer's Commonwealth: Populism and the Knights of Labor in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, 1880-1892." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis, 1996.  DAI, 57, no. 04A, (1996).  Blue Earth farmers and workers formed one of the first Farmer-Labor parties in the nation in 1886.  Farmers and workers were drawn together by their common experience fighting to survive in the intensely competitive economy of the Gilded Age.  Knights and Populists spoke the same language of reform politics and shared the same vision of a cooperative commonwealth.   

Kremenak, Nellie Wilson. "Urban Workers in the Agricultural Middle West, 1856-1893: With A Case Study of Fort Dodge and Webster County, Iowa." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1995.  DAI, 56, no. 07A, (1995): 2838.  The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 signaled the close of a period of more open opportunity and generated a reappraisal of community values by both working people and local elites.  For many working people, that reevaluation led to affiliation with the Knights of Labor, which challenged economic and political power structures.  The Knights forged political alliances with reform-minded middle class neighbors.  Working class political activism contributed to the great political realignment of the late nineteenth century. 

Lehman, Oscar Snyder. "The Political and Legislative Activities of the Knights of Labor, 1878-1888." M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1926.  ADD, S0330, (1926): 2956. 

Letwin, Daniel. "Interracial Unionism, Gender, and "Social Equality" in the Alabama Coalfields, 1878-1908." Journal of Southern History 1995 61(3): 519-554.  The Greenback Party, Knights of Labor, and United Mine Workers all advocated a qualified form of interracialism in the coal fields of Alabama.  The absence of white women made interracial unionism possible.  The sanctity of white womanhood was a crucial factor in promoting segregation. America: History and Life, 33:9480

Marcus, Irwin M.; Bullard, Jennie; and Moore, Rob. "Change and Continuity: Steel Workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 1889-1895." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1987 111(1): 61-75.  Chronicles political action among the workers of the steel company town of Homestead. When the Carnegie Steel Company purchased the Homestead steel works in 1883, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers held sufficient power to impose work rules on the new owner. The company prevailed in an 1892 lockout.  Homestead workers then turned to public protest and politics.  Homestead became a center of Populist political activity.  With the Republican victory of 1896, the Company regained control over the town and suppress the workers' struggle.  Only with the rise of the Socialist Party, did workers reassert their political power. America: History and Life, 25A:1844

Marlatt, Gene Ronald. "Joseph R. Buchanan: Spokesman for Labor during the Populist and Progressive Eras." 429 p. Ph.D. dissertation, U of Colorado, 1975.   DAI 36(08A):5496-5497. 

McMurray, Donald R. Coxey's Army: A Study of the Industrial Army Movement of 1894. 331 p. Boston: Little, 1929.   Reprinted with introduction by John D. Hicks, Seattle: U of Washington P, 1968. "Coxeyism was Populism."   

_____. "Kelly's Army." Palimpset. 6:325-45. October 1923.  

McPartland, Edward James. "A Study of Rural-Urban Conflict in the Nebraska Legislature." 193 p. Ph.D. dissertation, U of Nebraska, 1970.  Dissertation Abstracts, 31:4233-A.  

McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. 334 p. Boston: Little, 1939.   Some information of interplay of Populism and laborers.  

Montgomery, David. "Labor and the Republic in Industrial America: 1860-1920." Mouvement Social [France] 1980 (111): 201-215.  The common roots of the many late-19th century struggles enabled militants to inspire a sense of moral universality among the producers.  America: History and Life, 18A:4374

Naftalin, Arthur. "The Tradition of Protest and the Roots of the Farmer‑Labor Party." Minnesota History. 35(2):53‑63., illus., notes. June 1956.  Contains material on Populism and Alliance as antecedents to  Farmer-Labor Party.  

Peterson, James. "The Trade Unions and the Populist Party." Science and Society. 8(2):143‑60. Spring 1944.  

Pierce, Michael Cain. "The Plow and Hammer: Farmers, Organized Labor and the People's Party in Ohio." Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1999.  DAI, 60, no. 08A (1999): 3104.  The Ohio People's Party was essentially a labor party.  Ohio farmers remained loyal to the traditional parties. Ohio's leading trade unionist, John McBride, led the forces attempting to take the AFL into an alliance with the People's party.  He defeated Samuel Gompers for the presidency of the AFL in 1894.  The fusion of the of the Populists and Democrats in 1896 destroyed the coalition that Ohio trade unionists had built around the People's party.  Scholars have sought to explain the rise of pure and simple unionism in hopes of understanding the conservative nature of modern American politics.  

_____. "The Populist President of the American Federation of Labor: The Career of John McBride, 1880-1895. Labor History [Great Britain] 2000 41(1): 5-24. McBride supported the Democratic Party in the mid-1880's.  McBride became the Ohio Miners' Union's first president in 1882 and held the post until 1889. After a brief tenure as a state representative, McBride helped found the Ohio People's Party in 1891.  Despite the failure of an 1894 miners' strike, McBride's popularity continued among the rank and file, and he defeated Samuel Gompers, who opposed direct political affiliation, for the office of AFL president in 1894.  In his year as president, McBride worked to bring the union into third party political action.  Gompers defeated McBride for reelection by a narrow margin in 1895.  McBride abandoned his union activity afterward.    

Ray, William W. "Crusade or Civil War? The Pullman Strike in California." California History 1979 58(1): 20-37.  The impact of the strike in California included the calling out of federal and state troops for the first time to maintain order, electoral successes by Populist candidates, and violence and sabotage by desperate ARU members. America: History and Life, 17A:2939

Rice, Stuart A. Farmers and Workers in American Politics. 231 p., illus. Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, v. 113, No. 2. New York, Columbia UP. 1924.  

Rodriquez, Alicia Esther. "Urban Populism: Challenges to Democratic Party Control in Dallas, Texas: 1887-1900." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1998.  DAI, 59, no. 10A, (1998): 3942.  The democratic party in Dallas, Texas faced political challenges from two organizations in the 1890s.  A business-oriented leadership backed by urban laborers comprised a non-partisan or independent faction of political challengers.  Urban workingmen who founded Dallas' People's party.  They sometimes aligned themselves with the independent faction in municipal elections.   

Ross, Steven Joseph. "Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1830-1890." Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1980.  DAI, 41, no. 02A, (1980): 0774.  From the outbreak of the May Day strikes of 1886 until the demise of the United Labor party in 1888, thousands of Cincinnati workers cast aside long time barriers of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, and craft and joined together in a collective crusade to create a new industrial commonwealth.  

Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1982. 

Saxton, Alexander. "San Francisco Labor and the Populist and Progressive Insurgencies." Pacific Historical Review. 34(4):421-38. Tables. November 1965.   Populists in California did win support of urban labor. America: History and Life, 14A:2729

Sorge, George A. Labor Movement in the United States: A History of the American Working Class from 1890 to 1896. Trans. by Kai Schoenhals. Contributions in Economics and Economic History No. 73. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1987.   Information on Knights of Labor and American Railway Union. 

Walsh, Julia Mary. "Horny-handed Sons of Toil": Workers, Politics, and Religion in Augusta, Georgia, 1880-1910." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.  DAI, 60, no. 09A (1999): 3501.  An examination of New South politics through the lens of religion of the textile strike of 1886, rise of urban Populism, and the success of the white supremacist, anti-Catholic, Cracker Party in early twentieth century Augusta.  The presence of so many transported rural folk provided a human bridge between rural Populists and urban workers.  A politically-active working class found common cultural and religious ground with rural workers and identified with their political struggles.  Ultimately, Populists were doomed, by a combination of electoral fraud, internal division, and race baiting.  

_____. "'Horny-Handed Sons of Toil': Mill Workers, Populists and the Press in Augusta, 1886-1894." Georgia Historical Quarterly 1997 81(2): 311-344.  Uses three Georgia newspapers (the Democratic Augusta Chronicle, the Populist People's Party Paper, and the Wool Hat of Richmond County) from 1892-93 to examine the Populist appeal to textile mill workers and Democratic opposition to the Populist perspective.  Tom Watson stressed class issues, particularly the need for an alliance between both farmers and industrial workers against upper-class owners. There was apparently substantial sympathy for the Populist cause among some mill workers in Augusta. America: History and Life, 36:6680

Ward, Robert D. and William W. Rogers. Labor Revolt in Alabama: The Great Strike of 1894. 172 p. U of Alabama P, 1945.  

White, William Thomas. "A History of Railroad Workers in the Pacific Northwest, 1883-1934." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1981.  DAI, 42, no. 12A, (1981): 5224.  In the 1890s, the Gilded Age pattern of community support for insurgent workers achieved its most dramatic expression in the Coxey Movement, the Great Northern Strike, and the Pullman Strike of 1894, during which the region's Populist, anti-railroad mood supported militant action by unemployed railway workers and those belonging to the American Railway Union.  

Whitman, Alden. "Notes on Populism and Labor: Reply to J. Peterson with Rejoinder." Science and Society. 9(3):252-53.   Attacks Judy Peterson for her review of Rochester, The Populist Movement.... Says Populists and labor were united on major causes and other issues besides free silver. Peterson review appeared in Science and Society. 8(3): 267-71. 1944.  

Wyman, Roger E. "Agrarian or Working-Class Radicalism? The Electoral Basis of Populism in Wisconsin." Political Science Quarterly 1974/75 89(4): 825-848. Wisconsin Populism arose out of socialist-oriented labor radicalism.  Challenges commonly-held belief that Wisconsin had a long tradition of agrarian radicalism in the late nineteenth century. America: History and Life, 12A:6919