By the Ore Docks: A Working People's History of Duluth (review)

By the Ore Docks is an extraordinary and exhaustively researched examination of the contribution and enduring legacy of Communist and radical organizers to the contemporary labor movement and progressive politics. The book spans about eighty years, beginning in the 1870s when Duluth first emerged as a dynamic industrial center and ending with the fall of the popular front, the ascendancy of a much-less radicalized labor movement, and the consolidation of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party under an anticommunist banner.

Although the book is specifically about Duluth and northeastern Minnesota, it is applicable to the broader story of radical working class history. Hudelson and Ross have put together a well-documented book that draws heavily on archival materials, oral histories, and labor, ethnic, and mainstream newspapers to tell the struggle of radical working-class organizers who fought to build a democratic and economically just society in the face of crushing opposition.

By the Ore Docks does not uncritically celebrate this heroism, or dismiss it as naïve. Rather, it poignantly puts a human face on the struggle and its victories and costs. Hudelson and Ross balance their two audiences well. Their book is easily accessible and readable for a broader audience interested in labor history and radical politics, and its footnotes and attention to scholarship make it a starting point for further research and study.

Hudelson was struck by the absence of written accounts or open conversation about Duluth's radical-labor and political history. What started as a narrower study of the Communist Party in Duluth soon became interwoven with much more information about ethnic communities, labor politics, immigration, the rise of gigantic corporations, the consolidation of capital, and the emergence of the modern labor movement.

Duluth, once heralded as an industrial and shipping giant, also became home for tens of thousands of new southern European immigrants seeking their American dream in Duluth's ore docks, steel mills, saw mills, industrial plants, and shipyards. By the Ore Docks tells the story of how these immigrant workers found in radical political organizations coherent explanations for the crushing logic of capitalism. They found solidarity in ethnic communities and clubs and a vehicle for collective gain in labor organizations. By telling their story, By the Ore Docks gives fuller recognition to the lasting impact and heroism of these radical organizers, and provides a useful framework for understanding political geographies that still resonate today and shape contemporary labor relations and political attitudes in many working-class communities.