In this Book

summary
William Scott’s Troublemakers explores how a major change in the nature and forms of working-class power affected novels about U.S. industrial workers in the first half of the twentieth century. With the rise of mechanization and assembly-line labor from the 1890s to the 1930s, these laborers found that they had been transformed into a class of “mass” workers who, since that time, have been seen alternately as powerless, degraded victims or heroic, empowered icons who could rise above their oppression only through the help of representative organizations located outside the workplace.Analyzing portrayals of workers in such novels as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Ruth McKenney's Industrial Valley, and Jack London’s The Iron Heel, William Scott moves beyond narrow depictions of these laborers to show their ability to resist exploitation through their direct actions—sit-down strikes, sabotage, and other spontaneous acts of rank-and-file “troublemaking” on the job—often carried out independently of union leadership. The novel of the mass industrial worker invites us to rethink our understanding of modern forms of representation through its attempts to imagine and depict workers’ agency in an environment where it appears to be completely suppressed.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Frontmatter
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page
  2. p. i
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Copyright Page
  2. p. iv
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Quotations
  2. p. v
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. p. vii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction. Power—Representation—Fiction
  2. pp. 1-21
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part I. The Making of the Mass Worker
  2. pp. 23-32
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 1. The Powerless Worker and the Failure of Political Representation: “The lowest and most degraded of human beasts”
  2. pp. 33-64
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 2. The Empowered Worker and the Technological Representation of Capital: “Out of this furnace, this metal”
  2. pp. 65-105
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part II. Strategy and Structure at the Point of Production
  2. pp. 107-120
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 3. The Disempowering Worker and the Aesthetic Representation of Industrial Unionism: “I am the book that has no end!”
  2. pp. 121-182
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 4. The Powerful Worker and the Demand for Economic Representation: “They planned to use their flesh, their bones, as a barricade”
  2. pp. 183-238
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion. Making Trouble on a Global Scale
  2. pp. 239-258
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 259-266
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Works Cited
  2. pp. 267-275
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 277-284
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. About the Author
  2. p. 285
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.