Overview

The golden key to understanding the last 75 years of American political development, the eminent labor relations scholar Michael Goldfield argues, lies in the contests between labor and capital in the American South during the 1930s and 1940s. Labor agitation and unionization efforts in the South in the New Deal era were extensive and bitterly fought, and ranged across all of the major industries of the region. In The Southern Key, Goldfield charts the rise of labor activism in each and then examines how and why labor organizers struggled so mightily in the region. Drawing from meticulous and unprecedented archival material and detailed data on four core industries-textiles, timber, coal mining, and steel-he argues that much of what is important in American politics and society today was largely shaped by the successes and failures of the labor movements of the 1930s and 1940s. Most notably, Goldfield shows how the broad-based failure to organize the South during this period made it what it is today. He contends that this early defeat for labor unions not only contributed to the exploitation of race and right-wing demagoguery in the South, but has also led to a decline in unionization, growing economic inequality, and an inability to confront and dismantle white supremacy throughout the US.A sweeping account of Southern political economy in the New Deal era, The Southern Key challenges the established historiography to tell a tale of race, radicalism, and betrayal that will reshape our understanding of why America developed so differently from other advanced industrial nations over the course of the last century.

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9780190079321

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Reviews

The political and scholarly importance of The Southern Key can hardly be overrated. Michael Goldfield's empirically thorough and theoretically reflexive work convincingly argues that the failures of southern labor during the 1930s and 1940s are essential for understanding everything else that has happened since, in the US, and therefore also in the world at large. -- Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam The Southern Key contains a significant and compelling explanation of the origins of the current state of the US and the world. Michael Goldfield with great erudition and a mastery of scholarly and archival sources engages the complexities in linking struggles against racial and class oppression in the US South Informed by his own life of activism and commitment, Goldfield guides us through the decades of the 1930s and '40s making clear the relationship of events of those years to the limited successes and larger failures of subsequent decades. It is hard to praise The Southern Key too highly. It should be read by many who have long awaited such a work and the many more who need it. -- John H. Bracey, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Culminating a lifetime of thinking and digging into sources by an important scholar of race, class, and power, The Southern Key tells the riveting story of the possibilities and failures of organizing workers in the South in the 1930s and 1940s. Goldfield brilliantly shows how defeats in that time and place closed off possibilities for a successful labor movement everywhere in the US, and for meaningful class and anti-racist politics, for decades to come. -- David Roediger, Professor of American Studies, University of Kansas, and author of Class, Race, and Marxism Michael Goldfield overturns decades of historical scholarship and prevailing wisdom-about trade unions, the American Left, race and class, and especially about the South. His sober, carefully researched assessment not only explains labor's decline and its impact on democratic struggles for justice, but considers what could have happened had movement leaders made different choices. The Southern Key holds the organizer's lesson: just as our present was not inevitable, neither is our future. -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class

Michael Goldfield overturns decades of historical scholarship and prevailing wisdom-about trade unions, the American Left, race and class, and especially about the South. His sober, carefully researched assessment not only explains labor's decline and its impact on democratic struggles for justice, but considers what could have happened had movement leaders made different choices. The Southern Key holds the organizer's lesson: just as our present was not inevitable, neither is our future. * Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class * Culminating a lifetime of thinking and digging into sources by an important scholar of race, class, and power, The Southern Key tells the riveting story of the possibilities and failures of organizing workers in the South in the 1930s and 1940s. Goldfield brilliantly shows how defeats in that time and place closed off possibilities for a successful labor movement everywhere in the US, and for meaningful class and anti-racist politics, for decades to come. * David Roediger, Professor of American Studies, University of Kansas, and author of Class, Race, and Marxism * The Southern Key contains a significant and compelling explanation of the origins of the current state of the US and the world. Michael Goldfield with great erudition and a mastery of scholarly and archival sources engages the complexities in linking struggles against racial and class oppression in the US South Informed by his own life of activism and commitment, Goldfield guides us through the decades of the 1930s and '40s making clear the relationship of events of those years to the limited successes and larger failures of subsequent decades. It is hard to praise The Southern Key too highly. It should be read by many who have long awaited such a work and the many more who need it. * John H. Bracey, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst * The political and scholarly importance of The Southern Key can hardly be overrated. Michael Goldfield's empirically thorough and theoretically reflexive work convincingly argues that the failures of southern labor during the 1930s and 1940s are essential for understanding everything else that has happened since, in the US, and therefore also in the world at large. * Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam *

Author Information

Michael Goldfield is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and currently Research Fellow at the Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University. A former labor union and civil rights activist, Goldfield's work focuses on the study of labor, class, race, and American politics

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