The Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order by Leon Fink (review)

Leon Fink is at it again. First, in 2002, he encouraged labour historians to think about the future by asking “What is to Be Done – In Labor History.” (Labor History, 43, no. 4: 419–424) He hoped they would respect what had been the strengths of the field while also looking for new paths to understand old questions. Now, in The Long Gilded Age he is following his own prescription. He hopes to convince labour historians that an America-inthe-world approach, or what Fink calls a “grounded globalism,” can offer fresh insights to traditional themes of working-class history. (8) The five essays consider how political ideas, the question of workers’ power, and internationalism shaped the politics, industrial relations, and reform movements of the era. Fink explores the options available to the historical actors of 1880 to 1920 and thinks just as seriously about what might have been as much as what was.

Fink showcases the promise of his approach by narrowly focusing each essay on a specific theme and using political culture and contingency as connective threads to tie them together. A discussion of the promises and perils of free labour ideology in Chapter 1 serves as a cultural frame for the Long Gilded Age. Fink suggests that the labour movement vacillated between embracing and challenging the individualist focus of free labour. Leaders used the ideology to expose deformations in market culture such as contract, convict, and sweatshop labour. However, employers mobilized other interpretations of free labour to privilege individual property rights and the right to work over collective concerns. Fink draws two conclusions from this history. First, free labour ideology limited workers’ ability to steer economic development in a mutualist direction by creating a paradox: the ideas that had the potential to set them free also provided employers powerful tools to limit workers’ successes. Second, this outcome was not predetermined. Fink compares the United States with France to show how two countries responded differently to similar economic changes. Whereas Americans chose individual liberty, the French emphasized collective obligation.

Fink continues to explore the themes of political culture and contingency in the next three chapters. In Chapter 2, he reexamines three key clashes between capital and labour, focusing on the central figures of the Homestead, Pullman, and anthracite strikes to explain the decisions they made and identify other possible options. Even readers familiar with these strikes will appreciate Fink’s examination. He eschews simple narrative strategies that celebrate heroes and demonize villains. Instead, he situates the pivotal actors, such as Andrew Carnegie, Eugene Debs, and Mark Hanna, in the moment and explains their actions within the context of their times. Fink asserts that the lessons to be derived from the strikes are that the power of capital was not unassailable and that no single system of labour relations existed during the period. Possibilities therefore existed for alternative outcomes. American workers could have formed industrial unions and labour parties just as their British and Australian counterparts did. Labour could have won collective bargaining rights through a tripartite system of power that balanced the interests of business, labour, and the state in the wake of the anthracite strike. The fact that American workers failed in these endeavors allows Fink to showcase the interpretive power of identifying historical contingencies.

From the battlefields of the three strikes, Fink moves to public policy debates in Chapter 3. He considers how US intellectuals, particularly those academics affiliated with the Wisconsin Idea of social reform such as Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons, inspired progressive reform but ultimately failed to establish the research university as a powerful advocate for American workers. Fink contrasts this history of unrealized potential with the experiences of the British Fabians and German Verein who managed some key reforms and wielded influence in their respective countries.

From the hallowed halls of the University of Wisconsin, in Chapter 4, Fink next looks...