Michael Pollak wrote:
>Could you expand on that? Unions were regulaly opposed by armed
>force in the 19th century, so belonging to one seems like it had to
>be pretty engaging. And workers in general -- i.e., people in
>general -- voted at higher rates then than they do now, even in the
>late 19th century, when national politics were even more venal and
>empty of content than they are now. So it's not clear at first
>sight what you're referring to. Do you mean that their horizons
>were more local?
-And then there were the Populists, who, whatever their faults, -consisted of ordinary folks who got deeply involved in the arcanae of -monetary theory and such.
But the Populists were more based on rural ideology than a worker mobilization-- and Populism foundered on the stronger racial identity of many Americans over their identity as workers. The exact period of Populist strength coincided with the tightening of Jim Crow and the completion of disenfranchisement of blacks in the South.
Nationally, workers were divided between the parties and urban workers were as attracted to the protectionism of the GOP as Populist rhetoric.
The reality is the labor movement is more unified as a political entity within the Democratic Party TODAY than they ever were in the 19th century.
Nathan Newman