Paternalism and Protest: Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Organized Labor, 1875–1905 by Melton A. McLaurin (review)

96 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Sennett cannottie hisquantifiable studies of thefamilyto the social milieu.His dataoncommunity attitudes isalmostfully dependent on onenewspaper. He failsto compare theattitudes of hismiddle-class groupto those heldby other socialgroups. Yet, thereis muchmaterialin evenDavid'sstandardhistoryof theHaymarketaffairwhichindicates that thehighest ranksof Chicago society werecaughtup in theantMmmigrant, anti-radical backlash. Sennett's version ofthepast issuspect andsince it isalso avowedly a prognosis ofAmerica's urban future, it isall the moredisturbing. Someof the otherstudies in thisvolumedeserve to be singled out for praise. LawrenceLevihe'sessay on 'SlaveSongs and SlaveConsciousness' demonstrates not onlyan impressive command of hissources but alsoyieldsan interesting critiqueof the Elkins'thesis on the slavepersonality. LeonLitwackexamines the slaveat the dawn of emancipation. He treatsthe freedmansensitively but without the obsequious touch which would bestowon him an unwarranted independence andmilitancy.It isprecisely thiseven-handed approach which haswon Litwack a reputationas one of the leadinghistorians of the black experience in America. This volumemay do morethan bringtogethersomeof the bestAmerican socialhistorians. It couldverywell turn the eyesof many scholars to the opportunities whichexistforpopulating thehistorical landscape withtheinarticulatemillionswhohavethusfar escaped our professional attention. STEPHEN SCHEINBERO Sir GeorgeWilliamsUniversity Paternalism andProtest:SouthernCottonMill Workersand OrganizedLabor, •875-•9o5. ME•.?ON A. MCLAUR•N. Westport,Conn.,Negro Universities Press, •97•. PP-xviii, 265.$•x.oo. Labourhistorians havelargelyignoredthe southern United States prior to the •9•os. The picturethat usuallyemerges is one of docilewhite mill workers, meeklyaccepting their lot and singularly unreceptive to attemptsto organize them. Thus Melton AlonzaMcLaurin's studyof the Southernbattlesof the Knights ofLaborandoftheNationalUnionofTextileWorkers, laterreorganized as the United Textile Workers of America, is a welcomecontribution to our understanding of Americanlabourduringitsformativeyears.What McLaurin shows isthatif organization failedin the Southit wasdueneitherto want of effortnor to the intractabilityof the labourer;like •ww attemptsto organize immigranttextileworkers in theNorth East (asMelvyn Dubofsky hasshown), it failedsimply because thetaskwastoogreat.The enemies of organized labour had too much on their side. AdmittedlyMcLaurin's attempt to acquit southerners of the chargeof docility is not without reservation. When he explainswhat gave employers such strongadvantages, he includes suchfactorsasthe individualistic temperament of the workersand their feelingof white solidarityagainstboth blacksand northerners - all of whichsound like docilityunderanotherguise. Nevertheless, REVIEWS 97 this situation was more characteristic of smaller rural mills than those of the cities.Thereit wasthepowerof blacklist, lockout,and eviction,in a regionof surplus labordue to a depressed agriculturaleconomy and of litfie industrial alternative,that overcame eventhe moststrenuous effortson the part of the unionists. Thuswith tradeunions destroyed andpolitics firmlyunderthecontrol of the employers, workingconditions remainedunaffectedby advances made elsewhere in the nation. Besides themain themesomeotherinteresting pointsemergefrom thisbook. McLaurin'sdescription of the sectional conflictbetweenNew Englandand Southern textileworkers laysto rest,at leastin the textileindustry,the old J.R. Commons concept ofthenational tradeunionastheproduct ofnationalmarkets. The New Englandlocalshavingoriginallyabandoned the National Union of Textile Workers when it came under the control of socialists refused reaffiliation later because of Southerndomination.When finally inducedby the American Federationof Labor to amalgamate with the NUTWto form the new United TextileWorkers of America,theNew Englanders insisted on a loose federation withregional financial autonomy in ordertosave themselves thecost of Southern organization. All this occurredat a time when productsproducedby cheap Southern labourthreatened thelivelihood of New Englandworkers. The part playedby SamuelGompersand the A•*Lin complementing the organizational activities of the textileunionis alsonoteworthy. Gompers sent fourpaidA•*L organizers into thefieldand alsohelpedforcethe New England locals toworkouta modus-vivendi withtheSoutherners. Altogether hisactivism in thisformof industrial unionism contrasts sharply with hisnegative roleamong the steelworkers. Or perhapsthe ultimatefailure of •*L effortSin the South caused Gompers to avoidsimilarventures elsewhere. It isinsome largerquestions oflabour history thatMcLaurin's bookisweakest. For instance, thereis little evidence for the statementthat the periodcovered by this book'sawa declinein the ranksof organized labor throughoutthe nation.' Moreover,althoughMcLaurin's descriptionof the disruptiveeffects of socialism amongthe textileworkersis accurate,his generalportayal of all socialists abandoning theaVLto form the Socialist Tradesand Labor Alliance in •896ismisleading. In fact,thepro-•*L standof mostsocialist tradeunionists broughtaboutthe disruption of the Socialist Labor Partysoonafterwards. But theseareminor faults;thisbookis a usefuladditionto a much neglectedarea of Americanlabour history. W.M. DICK Scarborough College,Universityo[ Toronto Twentieth-Century AmericanForeignPolicy.Editedby JOaN.E•a•N, RO.•tT X•.,•aNgR, DAreD ,OD¾. Columbus, Ohio StateUniversityPress, •97•. Pp. x, 567. $•o.oo. Thisisthethird volumeof essays published by the Ohio StateUniversityPress in a series dealingwith changeand continuity in twentieth-century America, ...