Silk Stockings and Socialism: Philadelphia's Radical Hosiery Workers from the Jazz Age to the New Deal by Sharon McConnell-Sidorick (review)

In Silk Stockings and Socialism, Sharon McConnell-Sidorick examines the activism of hosiery workers during the 1920s and 1930s in the Kensington section of north-east Philadelphia; a mill-town with a long and significant history of labour activism in the US. Kensington was the birthplace of the Knights of Labor in 1869, and later in 1889 the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (afffhw). McConnell-Sidorick argues that 19th-century traditions of community-based activism and radicalism were carried over into the 20th century where a younger generation of hosiery workers, or "youth militants," were at the forefront of the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (cio), New Deal programs, socialism, and labour feminism.

McConnell-Sidorick situates the story of Kensington hosiery workers in the context of the transatlantic movement of industry and traditions of workers' radicalism from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany. She uses oral histories, trade union records, the labour press, and studies conducted by social scientists in the 1930s to paint a rich picture of the community networks of support and traditions of resistance and radical craft unionism that emerged in Kensington. By the 1920s what the author describes as a form of "working-class cosmopolitanism" existed in the community. African-Americans, however, comprised only a small percentage of Kensington's population, and were peripheral to the textile trades both in the community and nationally. She suggests that the textile unions of the 19th and early 20th centuries did not concern themselves with racist hiring practices, but does not explore this issue in depth. Gender occupies a prominent place in McConnell-Sidorick's analysis. Although women did not occupy the most skilled jobs in the trade, which were the purview of male workers, McConnell-Sidorick emphasizes the importance of women, including wage-earning wives and mothers, to the development of the trade. When hosiery women asserted themselves in the community, she suggests, they were continuing a tradition of "disorderly women" that can be traced back to the textile trades in England.

The hosiery industry in Kensington benefited from Jazz Age changes in fashion and popular culture. The hosiery industry expanded with the demand for sheer, form-fitting, more affordable, stockings. A new generation of young workers in the industry participated in the bourgeoning youth culture and its pursuit of commercial amusements. McConnell-Sidorick challenges the interpretations of the flapper as a frivolous party girl, who wore short dresses and purchased an array of consumer goods including cigarettes and cosmetics. From a reading of the local labour press, McConnell-Sidorick concludes that the modern working girl of the 1920s was also influenced by "a new sense of independence and rights, and an admiration for the female 'heroines' who gained prominence in sports, movies, and the media during the 1920s," sparked by the heroism of the suffragettes. (7) Hosiery workers of both sexes reconfigured into what the author describes as "youth militants," by fusing youth culture and radical politics to build a subculture that included dances and parties as well as picket lines and sit-down strikes, while forging a vision for social change. Participation in such pastimes and an interest in consumerism did not necessarily preclude the development of social consciousness. McConnell-Sidorick suggests that Kensington was ethnically diverse, but overwhelmingly white in the 1920s and that most young workers lived with their families. More analysis of ethnic differences in the freedom and independence granted to working wives and daughters might have highlighted any tensions and differences in what the author presents as a harmonious view of working-class community and family life.

The wave of repression that swept the US after World War I resulted in a series of strikes in the 1920s. A concerted effort was made by textile unionists to build a broad based cross-generational and cross-gender solidarity based on socialist...