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A History of America in Ten Strikes
Recommended by The Nation, the New Republic, Current Affairs, Bustle, In These Times
"Entertaining, tough-minded, strenuously argued."
--The Nation
A thrilling and timely account of ten moments in history when labor challenged the very nature of power in America, by the author called "a brilliant historian" by The Progressive magazine
Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment.
For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past.
In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers' struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up.
Strikes include
Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 1830-40)
Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 1861-65)
The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886)
The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902)
The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912)
The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937)
The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946)
Lordstown (Ohio, 1972)
Air Traffic Controllers (1981)
Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)
"Entertaining, tough-minded, strenuously argued."
--The Nation
A thrilling and timely account of ten moments in history when labor challenged the very nature of power in America, by the author called "a brilliant historian" by The Progressive magazine
Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment.
For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past.
In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers' struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up.
Strikes include
Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 1830-40)
Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 1861-65)
The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886)
The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902)
The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912)
The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937)
The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946)
Lordstown (Ohio, 1972)
Air Traffic Controllers (1981)
Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 2, 2018
255 people are currently reading
6278 people want to read
About the author
Erik Loomis
7 books39 followersErik Loomis is an associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns, and Money on labor and environmental issues past and present. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Dissent, and the New Republic. The author of Out of Sight and A History of America in Ten Strikes (both from The New Press) as well as Empire of Timber, he lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
March 8, 2019
If the name “Erik Loomis” sounds familiar, that may be because you have read him in the politically progressive blog “Lawyers, Guns & Money” under the headings “Erik Visits a Grave" (410 entries to date) and “This Day in Labor History," in which he introduces his readers to such memorable events as the Creation of the Colored Farmer’s Alliance (1886), the Battle of Blair Mountain (1921), the Hard Hat Riot (1970), and the Kader Toy Fire (1993).
Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, knows his labor history, and, in A History of America in Ten Strikes he has found an effective vehicle to convey this often neglected subject to the average reader. Loomis chooses ten “strikes” in ten different periods, each of which exemplifies a different theme. He chronicles the events leading up to it and stemming from it, and then underlines its importance in the development of the labor movement. Although the narrative can be a dry at times (since—by the nature of the labor struggle—it customarily deals with collective action, not individual heroics), it is studded with illuminating anecdotes and brightened with notable names.
In “The Lowell Mill Girls” (1830’s), Loomis shows us how workers, often female textile workers, struggled from the first against a new industrial system they did not yet understand. Then our author moves on to consider “Slaves on Strike,” and how what we usually think as slaves abandoning their plantations during the Civil War was in effect a labor action, a protest that not only paralyzed the South but also brought about the end of slavery. Loomis goes on to write about the “Eight-Hour-Day Strikes," how, in the Gilded Age, the Knights of Labor’s aggressive push and the hysteria that followed the Haymarket Bombing (1886) led to owner reprisals and a virtual war between capital and labor. By way of contrast, he then demonstrates, in “The Anthracite Strike” (1902), how the rare action of a progressive elected official on the side of a union—in this case by president Theodore Roosevelt in support of the coal miners—could tip the scales in the favor of workers' rights.
Loomis then shows us how a new radical movement led by the IWW (the "Wobblies") shaped the nature of “The Bread and Roses Strike” in the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile mills in 1912, and how they succeeded through an expert use of propaganda:
With the strikers destitute, the IWW thought to place worker’s children with sympathizers in different cities. This spread the Lawrence workers' cause. On February 10th, 119 children boarded a train to New York dressed in their rags, with their name, age, address, and nationality pinned to them . . . They all found families when they arrived, as five thousand socialists met them at the train station to celebrate their arrival.Although the Wobblies’ uncompromising radicalism—and their promotion of violent “direct action”—never brought about the worker’s revolution they hoped for, the slow, steady growth of the union movement and the election of important Democratic allies in government led to significant union gains by 1940. Loomis sees the crucial event of this period to be “The Flint Sit-Down Strike” (1937). In this action, not only the GM workers, but their wives played a part:
A women's auxiliary formed to support the workers, bringing them food, clean clothing, newspapers and other items to help them spend the long nights inside the plant. Genora Johnson, a mother of two and the wife of one of the strike leaders, took the microphone and urged the women of Flint to stand up (or sit down!) to GM and fight for the men inside. She shouted, “We will form a line around the men, and if the police want to fire then, they’ll just have to fire into us.”Wages had bee been artificially frozen throughout WWII, and the demand for increased wages eventually led to a wave of post-war labor actions, which Loomis illustrates here in his treatment of “The Oakland General Strike.”
For two days, Oakland shut down. Despite the cold December rain, over 1000,000 workers participated . . . All businesses except for pharmacies and food markets, which the workers deemed essential for the city, closed. Bars could stay open but could only serve beer and had to put their jukeboxes outtside and allow for their free use. Couples literally danced in the streets . . . Workers allowed children to visit Santa in front of a department store to give their Christmas wishes. Recently returned war veterans created squadrons to prepare for battle against the police.Labor made wage gains throughout the postwar years, but eventually a new generation of workers began to agitate for a change in dehumanizing working conditions. For Loomis, the crucial event in this phase of the struggle was the “Lordstown” strike (1972) in Youngstown, Ohio. (Equal treatment for women and minorities was also an important theme during this period, and Loomis does a good job of treating these issues too.)
Unfortunately, the ‘80’s brought with it the ascendancy of the Republican party and its deliberate attempt to break the back of unions. The crucial event in this phase, according to Loomis, was “The Air Traffic Controllers Strike” (1981) when Ronald Reagan fired all the strikers who refused to return to work, thereby crushing a powerful public sector union and setting the tone for years to come. Private sector unions as a force in the U.S. have now been virtually neutered, and what remains of the public sector unions—teachers, firefighters, police—are continually subject to attack. The only bright spot in union growth now lies in the organizing of minority and immigrant labor in low wage service industries, which Loomis sees exemplified in the rise of the SEIU (The Service Employees International Union) and the “Justice for Janitors” movement in 1990’s in L.A.
America’s history of labor in ten strikes. It is an account of painful gains through more than a century, followed by a forty-year decline. Loomis, although not optimistic, is still hopeful that Americans will listen to the lessons of history and continue to fight:
We came very far in the struggles of workers in the two centuries before today. In the past four decades, we have given back much of our freedom. Only through our combined struggle to demand the fruits of our labor can we regain our lost freedoms and expand those freedoms into a better life for all Americans.
December 9, 2018
Excellent, excellent book, and possibly my new favorite intro to the basics of US labor history.
What worked here:
This read as history, not as political theory. It feels like the author is studying these events with an eye to learn from them, not to retroactively apply an interpretation to advance an agenda. I appreciate this a lot in history writing.
And I learned a lot. We hear so much talk about the dismal state of organized labor, but really, when taking the long view, the situation is not hopeless right now. For all but 40 years of US history, the government and corporate powers have been aligned to crush their workers. Previous to 1935, that crushing often took the form of lethal violence. And people KEPT ORGANIZING! It's really stunning that anybody kept at it, given how few successes were ever won, how quickly those successes were usually eradicated, and how steep the costs of failure were. Given what organizers and workers faced before 1935, our terrain today doesn't seem nearly as difficult--it's always encouraging for me to remember that it could be way, way worse.
It was also such a relief to read a book that accounted for race and gender dynamics in a thoughtful way without that being the framing lens. Too much of labor history is the history of white men, and you have to read women's history or black history etc to get the other parts of the story. I appreciated that this history took, for the most part, a holistic approach, and brought about an analysis of those dynamics throughout. Specifically, I appreciated the author's straightforward accounting of the way legalized rape helped fuel both indentured servitude and slavery, and all the ways sexual violence against women has served the economic interests of capitalism.
Slavery was framed as a worker's rights issue! Yes! Duh! It is thrilling to learn the history of massive slave strikes during the Civil War, and it feels really appropriate to frame the mass abandonments of plantations as a strike. Too much of labor history has relegated slavery to being about only racial equality or black justice--OF COURSE it needs to be seen as possibly the most important development in the history of the US working class!
And it was illuminating to read an analysis of organizing tactics, action plans, and structural decisions in past eras of labor organizing. It is so easy for us to come up with easy, reductive answers today: unions need to be more militant! they need to strike more! they need to stop supporting the democratic party! and so on and so on and so on. Understanding the vast number of approaches taken in the past, where they worked and where they failed, is so helpful for gaining a more seasoned and strategic analysis than any of that.
My critiques are not necessarily finding fault, but wanting more. I want a lot more about immigrant organizing throughout the 20th century. I want a lot more about how bosses brought in trainloads of black strikebreakers from the south in different eras. The history covered of the massive manufacturing industries is obviously important and unavoidable, but I'd love to read more about what was happening in marginalized industries throughout this time--what was it like to be a waitress in 1940, or a house cleaner in 1960, or bus driver in 1980? It is particularly a little head scratching that the UFW only served as a footnote, and that the Las Vegas Culinary Union only earned a brief mention for its electoral prowess, and not it's groundbreaking worker strength and industry dominance in a right to work state. The final chapter on SEIU and Justice for Janitors felt the least satisfying--maybe because it's the history I'm personally closest to. But I would have liked to see more details about how that organizing was carried out, and what the economic results of it have been.
Overall, this book is easy to read and an excellent, excellent way to understand the major themes of American labor in various parts of history.
What worked here:
This read as history, not as political theory. It feels like the author is studying these events with an eye to learn from them, not to retroactively apply an interpretation to advance an agenda. I appreciate this a lot in history writing.
And I learned a lot. We hear so much talk about the dismal state of organized labor, but really, when taking the long view, the situation is not hopeless right now. For all but 40 years of US history, the government and corporate powers have been aligned to crush their workers. Previous to 1935, that crushing often took the form of lethal violence. And people KEPT ORGANIZING! It's really stunning that anybody kept at it, given how few successes were ever won, how quickly those successes were usually eradicated, and how steep the costs of failure were. Given what organizers and workers faced before 1935, our terrain today doesn't seem nearly as difficult--it's always encouraging for me to remember that it could be way, way worse.
It was also such a relief to read a book that accounted for race and gender dynamics in a thoughtful way without that being the framing lens. Too much of labor history is the history of white men, and you have to read women's history or black history etc to get the other parts of the story. I appreciated that this history took, for the most part, a holistic approach, and brought about an analysis of those dynamics throughout. Specifically, I appreciated the author's straightforward accounting of the way legalized rape helped fuel both indentured servitude and slavery, and all the ways sexual violence against women has served the economic interests of capitalism.
Slavery was framed as a worker's rights issue! Yes! Duh! It is thrilling to learn the history of massive slave strikes during the Civil War, and it feels really appropriate to frame the mass abandonments of plantations as a strike. Too much of labor history has relegated slavery to being about only racial equality or black justice--OF COURSE it needs to be seen as possibly the most important development in the history of the US working class!
And it was illuminating to read an analysis of organizing tactics, action plans, and structural decisions in past eras of labor organizing. It is so easy for us to come up with easy, reductive answers today: unions need to be more militant! they need to strike more! they need to stop supporting the democratic party! and so on and so on and so on. Understanding the vast number of approaches taken in the past, where they worked and where they failed, is so helpful for gaining a more seasoned and strategic analysis than any of that.
My critiques are not necessarily finding fault, but wanting more. I want a lot more about immigrant organizing throughout the 20th century. I want a lot more about how bosses brought in trainloads of black strikebreakers from the south in different eras. The history covered of the massive manufacturing industries is obviously important and unavoidable, but I'd love to read more about what was happening in marginalized industries throughout this time--what was it like to be a waitress in 1940, or a house cleaner in 1960, or bus driver in 1980? It is particularly a little head scratching that the UFW only served as a footnote, and that the Las Vegas Culinary Union only earned a brief mention for its electoral prowess, and not it's groundbreaking worker strength and industry dominance in a right to work state. The final chapter on SEIU and Justice for Janitors felt the least satisfying--maybe because it's the history I'm personally closest to. But I would have liked to see more details about how that organizing was carried out, and what the economic results of it have been.
Overall, this book is easy to read and an excellent, excellent way to understand the major themes of American labor in various parts of history.
January 9, 2023
If you only ever read one book about the labor movement you should make A History of America in Ten Strikes that one book. First, it’s eminently readable, written to be read and understood by the general reader rather than academics and theorist. Second, it has absorbed and incorporated the perspectives of those once outside the mainstream labor movement, in particular the ideas of the brilliant W.E.B. Du Bois — a necessary corrective to past racism that once crippled the movement. And finally, it tells the history of America from the perspective of the working people who built it. This is such a dynamic change from studying American history as a series of wars or artificial eras, as the history of politicians and their machinations, or of Great Men (almost all white and wealthy).
While the book, as its title claims, concentrates on ten strikes across American history, it manages to fit a significant amount of labor history around those featured ten. Two of those ten stood out particularly for me. Incorporating Du Bois’ claim that the self liberation of American slaves fleeing to Union lines during the Civil War amounted to the greatest, most effective wild cat strike in labor history was brilliant. And the final of the ten, the Justice For Janitors strike by SEIU in the 1980s — a strike that reinvented the labor movement for a new century — stands as a personal favorite, as I have been a proud organizer for that union.
If you are a union member you need to read this book. If you are working class (i.e. you have a boss and draw a paycheck) you need to read this book. If you are at all aware of the function of class driving history, you need to read this book. If you simply care about the real, people’s history of the United States you need to read this book. Just read it already!
While the book, as its title claims, concentrates on ten strikes across American history, it manages to fit a significant amount of labor history around those featured ten. Two of those ten stood out particularly for me. Incorporating Du Bois’ claim that the self liberation of American slaves fleeing to Union lines during the Civil War amounted to the greatest, most effective wild cat strike in labor history was brilliant. And the final of the ten, the Justice For Janitors strike by SEIU in the 1980s — a strike that reinvented the labor movement for a new century — stands as a personal favorite, as I have been a proud organizer for that union.
If you are a union member you need to read this book. If you are working class (i.e. you have a boss and draw a paycheck) you need to read this book. If you are at all aware of the function of class driving history, you need to read this book. If you simply care about the real, people’s history of the United States you need to read this book. Just read it already!
March 11, 2019
A really great concept not well executed. Just go read Howard zinn or Eugene Debs. It’s dry and boring and there’s not much insight about the future
January 31, 2019
This book is really good: very dense but somehow always interesting, heavy on anecdotes to demonstrate macro themes, and clear, sharp critics of (1) racism, sexism, and xenophobia that has plagued the US labor movement and (2) the violence used by corporations & all levels of government to squash worker power. Also, it includes a good explanation of how progressive labor rights were afforded to women through very gendered (and arguably sexist) legal arguments.
I’d recommend to anyone who didn’t learn much about labor movements in high school or college, as well as anyone who thinks that businesses can be lured or enticed to treat workers well by their own volition. If you have read about the labor movement but don’t know much about the role women and people of color have played in it, read this too.
Things that I liked about this book:
- the level of detail (it includes so many examples of labor struggles I didn’t know about from all regions & geographies in the US)
- its critical analysis (really demonstrative, enraging examples of corporations and governments working together to forcefully break union strikes)
- clear, important take always (unions need to be inclusive; workers need to build movements that push political parties to the left; labor fails without an emphasis on electing allies to office; unions should focus on organizing low wage workers of color)
- the bibliography (so many books about black people, queer people, and women’s role in the 20th century labor movement)
Things I did not like:
- I think Loomis implies in the last chapter that economic insecurity lie at the core of racism/why white people voted for Trump. Its not a big per of this book so I didn’t knock a star off for it, but I disagree with that idea.
This was such a well written, accessible text that lies in anecdotes from the ground, legislation and court cases, and macro analysis. It centers the right people and successfully names groups that have historically been left out of conversations and legislation about American labor. It’s the best history book I’ve read in a while and I’m excited to continue reading Loomis’ work.
I’d recommend to anyone who didn’t learn much about labor movements in high school or college, as well as anyone who thinks that businesses can be lured or enticed to treat workers well by their own volition. If you have read about the labor movement but don’t know much about the role women and people of color have played in it, read this too.
Things that I liked about this book:
- the level of detail (it includes so many examples of labor struggles I didn’t know about from all regions & geographies in the US)
- its critical analysis (really demonstrative, enraging examples of corporations and governments working together to forcefully break union strikes)
- clear, important take always (unions need to be inclusive; workers need to build movements that push political parties to the left; labor fails without an emphasis on electing allies to office; unions should focus on organizing low wage workers of color)
- the bibliography (so many books about black people, queer people, and women’s role in the 20th century labor movement)
Things I did not like:
- I think Loomis implies in the last chapter that economic insecurity lie at the core of racism/why white people voted for Trump. Its not a big per of this book so I didn’t knock a star off for it, but I disagree with that idea.
This was such a well written, accessible text that lies in anecdotes from the ground, legislation and court cases, and macro analysis. It centers the right people and successfully names groups that have historically been left out of conversations and legislation about American labor. It’s the best history book I’ve read in a while and I’m excited to continue reading Loomis’ work.
July 15, 2022
Erik Loomis's A History of America in Ten Strikes provides a brief overview of American labor history, from colonial times through the Trump Administration. Despite the title, Loomis's narrative is less structured around specific labor actions than broader trends and subjects: labor vs. capital, the inequality of the Gilded Age and the attempts of the Progressive Era to rectify it, the fraught relationship of workers with the Federal government (often indifferent, frequently hostile, rarely friendly) and the rise and decline of labor unions. Loomis does zoom in for looks at specific periods, with brief sketches of famous strikes like the Lowell Girls, the Pullman Strike of the 1890s and Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, the "Bread Roses" rebellion spearheaded by the IWW and the Flint General Motors Strike of the '30s. A key, repeated lesson is of the underprivileged taking action themselves: no example better captures this than Loomis's chapter framing the Civil War as a "general strike" of Black slaves against their master, self-emancipating while the Federal government dragged its feet. On the other hand, even the most idealistic unions have been subject to predictable divisions of race, gender, ideology and tactics; radical unions like the Wobblies engaged in "infantile leftism" that hurt the cause more than Big Business while conservative unions like the United Mine Workers and American Federation of Labor began to accommodate with business and the state, some even joining the reactionary backlash of the '7os and '80s. And since World War II, but particularly beginning with Reagan's crushing of the PATCO union in the early '80s, anti-union forces have managed to destroy the political power and social cache labor once held. Loomis ends the book on a note of cautious optimism, using recent strikes by custodial workers, fast food employees and other "unskilled" laborers, a growing, cross-racial sense of working class camaraderie against the corporate society and increased political activism by progressives to argue that American workers can still work towards a fair and just society. Here's hoping that Loomis is right.
January 7, 2019
Even book giveaways make me sad. Thousands of people put their names in for the chance to win a single free copy of the latest silly romance novel or knuckleheaded apoca-prepper saga. By comparison, when I signed up to receive a free copy of this book via Netgalley, there was not even the suggestion that some poorly-paid employee of a dying publishing company might vet my application to see if I was a big enough influencer to merit a freebie. If I wanted this history of how long dead complete strangers often lost their lives and livelihoods to win work benefits later enjoyed (and then surrendered) by self and ungrateful millions, I could have it, immediately.
Of course, reading the content of this book won't make you feel any better about humanity, either. While the book makes clear that unions were and are not uniformly populated by little angels, the horrific exploitation and cruelty that non-unionized workers were subjected to makes it difficult to feel anything but sympathy. Then, of course, efforts to organize their ranks and improve their lot often bring further adversity raining down, often at the hands of authorized representatives of government, but also occasionally at the hands of private paramilitaries.
Even the reviews of this book are depressing. One two-star review mocks the author (a university professor) for using the personal pronouns “we” and “us”, lumping himself in (so goes the criticism) with workers with whom he really has nothing in common. Call me a lefty apologist if you will, but it is clear that the traditional image of the workers as exclusively people tending a roaring smelter or clanking printing press is as outdated as hoop skirts, starched collars, and centralized economic planning. Times change -- the definition of a worker should change with them.
Furthermore, negative reviews of this book indicate to me that the reviewers never really got past the beginning of this book, which, to be fair, has a worshipful tone toward unions and unionizing. If you stick with this book, you will see that the author has a thorough knowledge of the shortcomings of unions, past and present, especially racism, but also corruption, intolerance of dissent, and lack of follow-up. This last I thought was an important point that is often lost in traditional histories, even when they are nominally sympathetic to unions, because often the great labor leaders and other lefty celebrities followed the spotlight, while workers had their gains reduced or even reversed completely once the public's eye had turned elsewhere.
I didn't love this book every moment and sometimes quibbled with certain statements. I noticed a few spelling and grammar errors, and sometimes I thought the text could have contained a few more citations. But I was glad I stuck with it, especially as it filled me in on labor actions of the last fifty years or so which I knew little about.
Thanks to Netgalley and The New Press for unquestioningly giving me a free electronic galley copy of this book to review.
Of course, reading the content of this book won't make you feel any better about humanity, either. While the book makes clear that unions were and are not uniformly populated by little angels, the horrific exploitation and cruelty that non-unionized workers were subjected to makes it difficult to feel anything but sympathy. Then, of course, efforts to organize their ranks and improve their lot often bring further adversity raining down, often at the hands of authorized representatives of government, but also occasionally at the hands of private paramilitaries.
Even the reviews of this book are depressing. One two-star review mocks the author (a university professor) for using the personal pronouns “we” and “us”, lumping himself in (so goes the criticism) with workers with whom he really has nothing in common. Call me a lefty apologist if you will, but it is clear that the traditional image of the workers as exclusively people tending a roaring smelter or clanking printing press is as outdated as hoop skirts, starched collars, and centralized economic planning. Times change -- the definition of a worker should change with them.
Furthermore, negative reviews of this book indicate to me that the reviewers never really got past the beginning of this book, which, to be fair, has a worshipful tone toward unions and unionizing. If you stick with this book, you will see that the author has a thorough knowledge of the shortcomings of unions, past and present, especially racism, but also corruption, intolerance of dissent, and lack of follow-up. This last I thought was an important point that is often lost in traditional histories, even when they are nominally sympathetic to unions, because often the great labor leaders and other lefty celebrities followed the spotlight, while workers had their gains reduced or even reversed completely once the public's eye had turned elsewhere.
I didn't love this book every moment and sometimes quibbled with certain statements. I noticed a few spelling and grammar errors, and sometimes I thought the text could have contained a few more citations. But I was glad I stuck with it, especially as it filled me in on labor actions of the last fifty years or so which I knew little about.
Thanks to Netgalley and The New Press for unquestioningly giving me a free electronic galley copy of this book to review.
October 24, 2018
I've been a big fan of Erik Loomis' writing over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money for years. Additionally, as I believe I mentioned in my review of John Nichols' The "S" Word, I had an American history event to run for DSA and nowhere near enough time to read Zinn for it! Fortunately, Loomis' new book A History of America in Ten Strikes, which I have been waiting for for several months, had the goodness to be published only three weeks ago, and the BPL system had some copies. I was able to cram about the first third of this book before I left for Vegas, which I was able to use to flesh out the presentation, and read the rest of it on the T and the plane, taking mental notes about stuff to use to fix the second half of the presentation when I got back to a computer the morning of the event.
Fortunately, this book is extremely readable and covers a lot of ground, which made it both immensely helpful for the presentation and easy enough to cram into my brain that it didn't feel like entirely inappropriate vacation reading (although the last time I went to Vegas I was reading a poker strategy book on the way out, which has math, so I guess I'm just bad at vacation reading). It's also vintage Erik — straightforward, dryly funny, relentlessly judgmental about the left's strategic weaknesses, but still militantly supportive of the dignity of all working people. One of the recurring themes, which is also a recurring theme in his blogging and also a recurring theme in American politics, is the role of racism in tanking attempts at labor solidarity and class consciousness in the U.S., or, more bluntly, that white people consistently decide they'd rather be racist than have nice things, and that's why we as a country can't have nice things.
The book covers a pretty well-rounded range of strikes, from the early industrial strikes of the Lowell Mill Girls up through the Justice for Janitors strikes and the current hubs of action in the labor movement. In between, we read about the big IWW-led strikes in heavy industry that everyone stereotypically associates with the labor movement, but ample attention is also given to strikes in female-dominated industries such as garment work and strikes by workers of color, such as the mass self-emancipation of slaves during the Civil War.
While there are some really great stories in this book — Loomis isn't going to miss a chance to recount my favorite failed historical assassination, Andrew Berkman and Emma Goldman's bungled attack on Henry Clay Frick — it's certainly not intended to be merely a repository of historical curiosities. There are valuable lessons that the current activist left can learn from the successes and failures of the past, and if you don't pick up on them just from hearing the stories, Erik will explicitly spell them out for you. Big ones include "It's important to get some less-terrible people into office so that you can work them" and "Workers of color are the future of the labor movement, and white people should strongly consider stop being so fucking racist, although there's no reason to assume they'll actually do that." He also makes sure you don't miss how incredibly violent much of labor history is, both in terms of the lengths to which capitalists and the state have gone to suppress even the mildest, most reasonable forms of worker organizing, and the militancy with which our labor ancestors worked to obtain the rights that we take for granted and which are being rapidly degraded as the New Gilded Age marches on (you know, stuff like "weekends"). The contrast with — and parallels to — the current whinging over "civility" in our current political discourse is illustrative.
Anyway, strikes are rad and they're making a comeback, so this is a timely book for anyone looking to be informed about them. It will make you fun at cocktail parties, assuming you go to the kind of cocktail parties that are full of weird nerds who like stories about anarchosyndicalists fucking up the Paterson silk mills, which are the only good kind of cocktail party to go to anyway.
Originally published at Uphold Rose Schneiderman thought.
View this post on InstagramSittin’ in the T station, readin’ about strikes #fridayreads
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Fortunately, this book is extremely readable and covers a lot of ground, which made it both immensely helpful for the presentation and easy enough to cram into my brain that it didn't feel like entirely inappropriate vacation reading (although the last time I went to Vegas I was reading a poker strategy book on the way out, which has math, so I guess I'm just bad at vacation reading). It's also vintage Erik — straightforward, dryly funny, relentlessly judgmental about the left's strategic weaknesses, but still militantly supportive of the dignity of all working people. One of the recurring themes, which is also a recurring theme in his blogging and also a recurring theme in American politics, is the role of racism in tanking attempts at labor solidarity and class consciousness in the U.S., or, more bluntly, that white people consistently decide they'd rather be racist than have nice things, and that's why we as a country can't have nice things.
The book covers a pretty well-rounded range of strikes, from the early industrial strikes of the Lowell Mill Girls up through the Justice for Janitors strikes and the current hubs of action in the labor movement. In between, we read about the big IWW-led strikes in heavy industry that everyone stereotypically associates with the labor movement, but ample attention is also given to strikes in female-dominated industries such as garment work and strikes by workers of color, such as the mass self-emancipation of slaves during the Civil War.
While there are some really great stories in this book — Loomis isn't going to miss a chance to recount my favorite failed historical assassination, Andrew Berkman and Emma Goldman's bungled attack on Henry Clay Frick — it's certainly not intended to be merely a repository of historical curiosities. There are valuable lessons that the current activist left can learn from the successes and failures of the past, and if you don't pick up on them just from hearing the stories, Erik will explicitly spell them out for you. Big ones include "It's important to get some less-terrible people into office so that you can work them" and "Workers of color are the future of the labor movement, and white people should strongly consider stop being so fucking racist, although there's no reason to assume they'll actually do that." He also makes sure you don't miss how incredibly violent much of labor history is, both in terms of the lengths to which capitalists and the state have gone to suppress even the mildest, most reasonable forms of worker organizing, and the militancy with which our labor ancestors worked to obtain the rights that we take for granted and which are being rapidly degraded as the New Gilded Age marches on (you know, stuff like "weekends"). The contrast with — and parallels to — the current whinging over "civility" in our current political discourse is illustrative.
Anyway, strikes are rad and they're making a comeback, so this is a timely book for anyone looking to be informed about them. It will make you fun at cocktail parties, assuming you go to the kind of cocktail parties that are full of weird nerds who like stories about anarchosyndicalists fucking up the Paterson silk mills, which are the only good kind of cocktail party to go to anyway.
Originally published at Uphold Rose Schneiderman thought.
June 8, 2022
Among the many problems of Loomis' myopic liberal worldview are some basic premises which are not backed up by facts. This book, released in 2018 in the middle of Trump's term, stands as an extremely "I did not understand the 2016 election and so listened to all the ruling class press to explain it to me" sort of moment in time. One of Loomis' core premises is that white workers in the US are inherently racist and will choose race over class when situations get difficult. Very funny to see liberals like Loomis and ultraleftists like J Sakai agree on this ahistorical, idealist argument. Never mind the fact that US labor history, and his own book, is filled with dozens of counter examples that prove otherwise. There's a complete misunderstanding of the history of racism, and how it and more broadly how ideology generally functions. Racism, sexism, anti semitism, etc, are not 'naturally occuring, inherent parts of workers identity'. They are purposefully constructed and promoted by the ruling class to split workers against each other and preserve their privileged position. They are artificial constructs and can be overcome. He also continues to promote the easily disproven line that the "white working class" swept Trump into office on the back of their racism. An examination of the actual facts can show people that Trump got more or less the exact same voters as Mitt Romney, disproportionately petit bourgeois and bourgeois votes. Hillary lost because she was an awful candidate who offered the working class nothing but disdain. The majority of the working class, as in basically every election, did not vote. Trump did not win office because racist white workers with "economic anxiety" "voted against their interests", he won because neither party offered workers anything, so most workers stayed home, and the Democrats ran the least popular candidate in history. Yes there are racist white workers in the US, plenty of them for sure. But history has shown that smart, class based organizing that empowers workers to fight for issues that directly impact their daily life on the job can show those workers that they have more in common with their Black and Brown coworkers than the bosses.
With that out of the way we can get at the biggest problem of this book, Loomis' liberal misunderstanding of what the State actually IS under class society. Loomis views the state in the classic, liberal, Weberian manner, as a neutral ground where different interests fight for influence. This is incorrect. In class society, as its history has shown us, and as theorists like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Althusser, Poulantzas, and others have demonstrated, functions as the executive committee for the ruling class. The state has limited, relative independence from any SINGLE group of capitalists only because it exists to promote the interests of the capitalists AS A CLASS. Its role of mediation is between fractions of the power bloc, different segments of the bourgeoisie and occasionally the petit bourgeoisie. Workers cannot solve the inherent contradictions of capitalism by voting in representatives to the state because that is not what the state is structurally designed to do. Workers may win temporary gains via reforms enacted after fierce periods of class struggle, but as long as the property relations of society remain capitalist, the state will roll those back. We see this with numerous examples, in how OSHA was created after long fought struggles by union workers, but now serves to protect corporations, handing out tiny fines to prevent lawsuits and strikes that might actually force companies to enact safety procedures. Anti trust legislation passed ostensibly to reign in monopoly excesses are instead used nearly exclusively to prevent workers, especially those misclassified as "independent contractors" from unionizing. Regulatory agencies serve to protect the industries they claim to regulate rather than the public. These attacks on workers happen under both parties. These are not aberrations, they are how every capitalist state functions, even the lauded aocial democracies of western europe, whose welfare states are built on the wages of global imperialism and are themselves straining at their seams as the global rate of profit falls.
This may seem like a tangent for a book about labor history, but this misunderstanding of the state shapes Loomis' entire narrative about labor history. His ultimate conclusion is that worker power alone is nothing faced with an intransigent capitalist state. His prescription for saving the labor movement is, in essence, for unions to continue the failed policies of the last 50 years, pouring millions of their workers hard earned dollars into supporting capitalist politicians. As Kim Moody (a vastly superior labor historian) points out in his excellent works An Injury to All and US Labor in Trouble and Transition, unions have been trying this for decades and it has only brought failure. Unions will never be able to outspend business, that's a structural feature of an economic system that concentrates wealth in the hands of a tiny few. So trying to influence politicians with donations in a losing battle. The Democrats are just as much the enemy of the working class as the Republicans are, as numerous examples in his own book demonstrate!
What we need, and what we are seeing with the rise of movements like the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United, is a democratic, rank and file revival within the labor movement where workers control their own organizing. Direct action through strikes, protests, walkouts, slowdowns, working to rule, community rallies, and numerous other tactics, are what win gains for workers, not begging bourgeois politicians. What has kept those radical, militant unions from being able to make their wins permanent in the past however, has been the lack of an independent, working class political movement to unite behind. Only socialism can make working class wins permanent, they will never be able to keep them under capitalism. For socialism to triumph, we need a strong, fighting labor movement. For that movement to keep its momentum, it will have to build beyond just reformist legislation to actually overturning the economic order and putting workers in charge for the first time in our history. It's a tall order, but as history demonstrates, its our only path to permanent victory. Loomis' argument that revolution is impossible, that even the formation of an independent workers party is impossible, and that workers should instead focus on the actually structurally impossible task of pulling the bourgeois Democrats to the left, which unions have spent millions unsuccessfully trying to do for a century, is an incredibly nihilistic, ahistorical viewpoint. It flies in the face of the history of global class struggle confining it to choosing which of the representatives of the billionaires will represent us every few years. We can look to the success of our brethren in Vietnam, Cuba, Bolivia, and elsewhere to see that we need not confine our political horizons to such a sad, narrow lot.
Don't read this book, there's tons of other better labor histories out there. Read Kim Moody's work or Mike Davis' Prisoners of the American Dream instead .
With that out of the way we can get at the biggest problem of this book, Loomis' liberal misunderstanding of what the State actually IS under class society. Loomis views the state in the classic, liberal, Weberian manner, as a neutral ground where different interests fight for influence. This is incorrect. In class society, as its history has shown us, and as theorists like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Althusser, Poulantzas, and others have demonstrated, functions as the executive committee for the ruling class. The state has limited, relative independence from any SINGLE group of capitalists only because it exists to promote the interests of the capitalists AS A CLASS. Its role of mediation is between fractions of the power bloc, different segments of the bourgeoisie and occasionally the petit bourgeoisie. Workers cannot solve the inherent contradictions of capitalism by voting in representatives to the state because that is not what the state is structurally designed to do. Workers may win temporary gains via reforms enacted after fierce periods of class struggle, but as long as the property relations of society remain capitalist, the state will roll those back. We see this with numerous examples, in how OSHA was created after long fought struggles by union workers, but now serves to protect corporations, handing out tiny fines to prevent lawsuits and strikes that might actually force companies to enact safety procedures. Anti trust legislation passed ostensibly to reign in monopoly excesses are instead used nearly exclusively to prevent workers, especially those misclassified as "independent contractors" from unionizing. Regulatory agencies serve to protect the industries they claim to regulate rather than the public. These attacks on workers happen under both parties. These are not aberrations, they are how every capitalist state functions, even the lauded aocial democracies of western europe, whose welfare states are built on the wages of global imperialism and are themselves straining at their seams as the global rate of profit falls.
This may seem like a tangent for a book about labor history, but this misunderstanding of the state shapes Loomis' entire narrative about labor history. His ultimate conclusion is that worker power alone is nothing faced with an intransigent capitalist state. His prescription for saving the labor movement is, in essence, for unions to continue the failed policies of the last 50 years, pouring millions of their workers hard earned dollars into supporting capitalist politicians. As Kim Moody (a vastly superior labor historian) points out in his excellent works An Injury to All and US Labor in Trouble and Transition, unions have been trying this for decades and it has only brought failure. Unions will never be able to outspend business, that's a structural feature of an economic system that concentrates wealth in the hands of a tiny few. So trying to influence politicians with donations in a losing battle. The Democrats are just as much the enemy of the working class as the Republicans are, as numerous examples in his own book demonstrate!
What we need, and what we are seeing with the rise of movements like the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United, is a democratic, rank and file revival within the labor movement where workers control their own organizing. Direct action through strikes, protests, walkouts, slowdowns, working to rule, community rallies, and numerous other tactics, are what win gains for workers, not begging bourgeois politicians. What has kept those radical, militant unions from being able to make their wins permanent in the past however, has been the lack of an independent, working class political movement to unite behind. Only socialism can make working class wins permanent, they will never be able to keep them under capitalism. For socialism to triumph, we need a strong, fighting labor movement. For that movement to keep its momentum, it will have to build beyond just reformist legislation to actually overturning the economic order and putting workers in charge for the first time in our history. It's a tall order, but as history demonstrates, its our only path to permanent victory. Loomis' argument that revolution is impossible, that even the formation of an independent workers party is impossible, and that workers should instead focus on the actually structurally impossible task of pulling the bourgeois Democrats to the left, which unions have spent millions unsuccessfully trying to do for a century, is an incredibly nihilistic, ahistorical viewpoint. It flies in the face of the history of global class struggle confining it to choosing which of the representatives of the billionaires will represent us every few years. We can look to the success of our brethren in Vietnam, Cuba, Bolivia, and elsewhere to see that we need not confine our political horizons to such a sad, narrow lot.
Don't read this book, there's tons of other better labor histories out there. Read Kim Moody's work or Mike Davis' Prisoners of the American Dream instead .
February 20, 2020
This book is immensely informative for its brevity, but Loomis's writing struck me as pretty bone dry. Oftentimes, it feels like a recitation of facts with not much narrative finesse at all. Still, I've yet to come across another book this short with this much information about the history of labor movements in the United States, so even if he's not the best storyteller, he's certainly a capable historian. The chapters on slave strikes and the '80s Air Traffic Controllers strike were the most interesting to me.
December 21, 2024
I'm rounding this up because it was just so damn motivating. Even if the final chapters highlight the downward turn of union power in America, I know that the union fight has only gotten bigger and stronger since this book's publication. I would be interested in hearing what Loomis has to say about the current surge in union activity around the nation. Also how amazing is it that I finish this book on a historic day when both the Starbucks Workers United union and Amazon Warehouse unions have decided to go on strike? Power to those people and I hope they get big, strong wins. Remember, only in unity can we achieve the basic rights and dignities that we deserve in a nation that actively takes away rights, tramples, and kills people for daring to be treated with respect. Your minimum wage, 8-hour day, 40-hour week, building safety, safety regulations in general, and more were fought for by brave people willing to LITERALLY put their life on the line for you and everyone else. And Loomis's message of how we must come together with class solidarity and overcome prejudices that inhibit our ability to gain access to rights, safety, security and power in this country, is more important than ever.
November 6, 2019
Surprisingly readable! Good overview/intro to the history of labor movements in the US, pro-union without being hagiographic about it, pretty intersectional in scope.
May 5, 2021
A descriptive but concise summary of some of the most important labor movements in American history.
The author does an excellent job conveying the context and narratives of each of the featured strikes by showing analog labor efforts in other parts of the country, how media reacted, and how the government intervened to alternately buoy and crush the union movement.
Recommended reading for anyone seeking to better understand the state and history of labor and its struggles in America and how we got to be where we're at today.
The author does an excellent job conveying the context and narratives of each of the featured strikes by showing analog labor efforts in other parts of the country, how media reacted, and how the government intervened to alternately buoy and crush the union movement.
Recommended reading for anyone seeking to better understand the state and history of labor and its struggles in America and how we got to be where we're at today.
June 12, 2024
A very interesting take on the history of the labor movement that bends towards neoliberalism at times. Author seems to paradoxically admire radicals but have a deeply ingrained fear of radicalism like only an American liberal can. Very helpful for those trying to understand the history of American strikes as we enter a new era of union democracy.
August 31, 2024
3.75 stars— a great overview of American history with a labor lens, giving each specific strike a larger historical context, and outlining a very clear thesis for each chapter. A little dry sometimes, but a solid example of public scholarship
April 12, 2023
This was great! Lots of detailed history and good political analyses.
April 28, 2025
Trash book #9. Important history, but such a drag to get through. Repetitive with endless acronyms that start to run together. I think the information could have been presented in a more engaging way, especially for a book that claims to be for a general reader.
January 17, 2022
This book could also be titled "It's almost like the history of the nation's labor movement is intentionally omitted from US education."
But seriously, I found this history to be fascinating and kept thinking of all the gaps in my own education that this book was only starting to fill.
My one quibble is with the structure of the book. It's not really only 10 strikes, and so sometimes whatever specific action was the theme of the chapter got lost in (still fascinating) diversions.
But seriously, I found this history to be fascinating and kept thinking of all the gaps in my own education that this book was only starting to fill.
My one quibble is with the structure of the book. It's not really only 10 strikes, and so sometimes whatever specific action was the theme of the chapter got lost in (still fascinating) diversions.
February 6, 2019
This is a dense, readable overview of labor history in the United States. The "Ten Strikes" framing is a little overstated - the ten specific strikes get a bit more elaboration than the other strikes discussed, but not much. It's more of a way to divide up the history into digestible chunks.
I appreciate the frank way Loomis discusses how racism, nativism and sexism have divided workers. I wish the book were a bit longer so he could provide more detail about what circumstances and choices allowed workers to create long-lasting solidarity, but the narrative is a bit too whirlwind for that.
I appreciate the frank way Loomis discusses how racism, nativism and sexism have divided workers. I wish the book were a bit longer so he could provide more detail about what circumstances and choices allowed workers to create long-lasting solidarity, but the narrative is a bit too whirlwind for that.
September 16, 2018
In a time when organized labor and unions are on the decline, Loomis provides a fierce call to arms to not let US labor rights slip from our fingers. I really enjoyed reading about 10 of the most significant strikes in US history, especially the one he details of slaves to attempted to self-emancipate in the 1800s. I also appreciated his emphasis on how prioritizing racial identity over class identity has been detrimental to the overall progression of workers' rights.
January 14, 2020
This is not one of those popular nonfiction books that reads like fiction. It summarizes a lot and drags down in detail. I can't say it's a fun read, but then, it is an important read, for providing a sweeping overview of labor struggles in the United States over time. If it feels repetitive, well, so does history.
I wish it had done what it advertised and focused just on the ten titular strikes, going into greater depth on less material, but rather it separates out a long narrative of many strikes with these ten keystones to separate eras.
I wish it had done what it advertised and focused just on the ten titular strikes, going into greater depth on less material, but rather it separates out a long narrative of many strikes with these ten keystones to separate eras.
April 19, 2024
A solid periodization of labor movements in the US for a popular audience. Although there is room for criticism on the details, this book does a great job of giving a practical and clear framing of what labor movements need to succeed.
It avoids both being naively radical and cynically moderate, acknowledging the many failures of past movements including the often hagiographied IWW.
I strongly recommend this as a starting point for learning about labor history, much more than Zinn’s People’s History of the United States - especially if you are only going to read one book on the subject.
It avoids both being naively radical and cynically moderate, acknowledging the many failures of past movements including the often hagiographied IWW.
I strongly recommend this as a starting point for learning about labor history, much more than Zinn’s People’s History of the United States - especially if you are only going to read one book on the subject.
August 12, 2021
I really enjoyed this book! Was dense at times but was a great overview of the labor struggle in the U.S. Takeaways: (1) The historical labor struggle was so violent omg; (2) We have so much to thank unions for; (3) The government’s attitude towards unions can make or break the movement; (4) 🗣 Your boss is not your friend; (5) I wonder if we will ever see a reprise of strong unions 🤔 if we do it will be led by workers of color! ✊🏼
Read
October 15, 2023Would have been great if he'd actually figured out how to write about ten strikes instead of talking about ten movements with overlapping hospital periods and trying to talk about so much that he glossed over everything.
January 23, 2025
Great cursory view of the power and importance of unions for audiences looking to learn about how they can advance labor rights today. 3 stars because the book tries to cover so much history that it ends up leaving out many details and at times felt repetitive.
April 15, 2025
A fairly straightforward and colorful history of the history of labor in America. I do think everyone should read it, as knowing where the country has been can tell you where it is going, or how to get back to what it once was.
April 16, 2019
An excellent and accessible account of the class conflict between labor and capitalists from the beginning of industrialization to the present day. Perfect for the high school audience.
Read
September 19, 2022I tried. Man, I tried. I got midway into strike three and called it. Just… a poorly written book.
March 12, 2024
So based
December 2, 2020
I don't really know what I expected or wanted from this book, but I didn't really get it.
I mean, it is exactly what it says it is. It's basically ten case studies on what happens when labor organizes. The takeaway is that no amount of organizing labor can withstand the combined resistance of corporations and government. Which is why organized labor failed throughout the 19th century, succeeded from the beginning of FDR until Jimmy Carter, and then collapsed and has continued to be crushed since Reagan.
There's hope in recent history, but the state and corporations stand belligerently against organized labor right now. Even so, people are fighting for their rights.
Maybe it's just that I already basically knew the broadstrokes of this and that I find the whole mess depressing.
The book is very good. I guess maybe I wasn't wanting to hear what I knew was true.
I mean, it is exactly what it says it is. It's basically ten case studies on what happens when labor organizes. The takeaway is that no amount of organizing labor can withstand the combined resistance of corporations and government. Which is why organized labor failed throughout the 19th century, succeeded from the beginning of FDR until Jimmy Carter, and then collapsed and has continued to be crushed since Reagan.
There's hope in recent history, but the state and corporations stand belligerently against organized labor right now. Even so, people are fighting for their rights.
Maybe it's just that I already basically knew the broadstrokes of this and that I find the whole mess depressing.
The book is very good. I guess maybe I wasn't wanting to hear what I knew was true.
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