Overview

This biographical study analyzes the careers and thinking of a dozen union leaders of Irish descent who contributed significantly to the union movement. The work demonstrates the pragmatic approach of the majority of these leaders arising from disappointing experience with radical ideas embraced in their youth. Their object was cohesion among diverse nationalities in the work force to build strong national unions able to eliminate destructive wage competition in ever-widening markets. Beginning with background on Irish immigration, the study follows developments from the 1870s and extends through those who were active in the 1950s on both coasts and in the mid-west. It is the first book written for scholars and others dealing with Irish-American unionists in depth.

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9780313299445

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Reviews

?O'Donnell's deeply informed study of 12 Irish American labor leaders contains brief biographies of activists ranging from 19th-century union pioneers Peter J. McGuire and Terence V. Powderly, to radicals Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and William Z. Foster, to shapers of 20th-century industrial unionism, John Brophy and Philip Murray.... This study is both well grounded in the historiography of US labor and in the tangled history of Irish nationalism in Ireland and the US.... a reliable collective biography that provides useful guideposts for future research.?-Choice

Author Information

L. A. O'DONNELL recently retired from the Economics Department at Villanova University. O'Donnell is the author of a number of articles on labor and economic history emphasizing the contribution of the Irish immigrants.

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