Transitioning labor to the ‘lean years’: the middle class and employer repression of organized labor in post-World War I Chicago

Abstract

In the historiography of the American labor movement, the 1920s have long been characterized as ‘lean years’. Historians have identified many explanations for this decline, but they have not fully accounted for the role of ‘public’ or ‘middle class’ anti-labor sentiment. Opportunistic employers appealed to growing middle-class consumer discontent, set in motion by the mounting ‘high cost of living’, to build support for crippling unions during the immediate post-World War I period. Using Chicago as an example, this essay emphasizes the relationship between employers and the white-collar ‘middle class’ as an important factor in explaining the origins of the lean years.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Mari Jo Buhle, Robert Self, Elliott Gorn, Christine Reiser Robbins, Janine Lanza, and two anonymous reviewers for their detailed and insightful comments on earlier versions of this work.

Notes

 1. Hartford Courant, June 29, 1928; Bernstein, The Lean Years, ix, 83.

 2. Bernstein, The Lean Years, ix.

 3. Frank, Purchasing Power.

 4. Zieger, American Workers, American Unions, 3–10.

 5. The authors of Who Built America, for example, describe the period as ‘Organized Labor in Decline’. For another example of a periodization of the 1920s as the lean years for organized labor in US labor history synthesis, see Dubofsky and Dulles, Labor in America: A History . Rosenzweig et al., Who Built America?, 349.

 6. US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 177.

 7. More recently, historians have also discussed how during the lean years, the working class did develop commonalities through their appropriation of consumer culture and through mass campaigns to protest signature moments of injustice, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. This helped to facilitate labor organization during the Great Depression. See Cohen, Making a New Deal, and Fletcher Jr., “Labor's Renewal?” Green, World of the Worker, 100; Montgomery, Workers' Control in America, 97.

 8. Also see Davis, Power at Odds. Brody, Labor in Crisis, 10; Green, World of the Worker, 101.

 9. Cohen, Making a New Deal, 13.

10. Montgomery, Fall of the House of Labor, 395; See also Fletcher Jr., “Labor's Renewal?,” 14.

11. See Cohen, Making a New Deal, 13.

12. For a discussion of the narrow goals of AFL leadership, see Bernstein, The Lean Years; Frank, “Irving Bernstein's Lean Years”; and Zieger, Republicans and Labor.

13. Dubofsky and Van Tine, John L. Lewis, 86–90, 133; Data calculated from Table 2 (December. 1918 to July 1919 versus June–November. 1929) in Boal, “New Estimates of Paid-up Membership,” 542.

14. See Zieger, Republicans and Labor.

15. For an analysis of the connection between welfare capitalism and the lean years, see Fletcher Jr., “Labor's Renewal?,” 14; Frank, “Irving Bernstein's Lean Years,” 83–89; and Brody, Labor in Crisis. For an interpretation that suggests that consumer culture distracted the working class from activism, see Ewen, Captains of Consciousness. Lawrence M. Lipin also notes that the Oregon working class moved away from radical single tax activism when they increasingly embraced leisure during the 1920s, though he also argues that ‘a more consumerist orientation … would become [a] critical element[s] of the New Deal approach to class and society’. The idea that workers were primarily distracted by the appeal of consumerism in the 1920s has been increasingly called into question by historians. For instance, Lizabeth Cohen argues that the working class appropriated consumer culture into their own independent neighborhood-level culture. Consumer culture also gave a previously culturally divided working class something in common that abetted labor activism in the 1930s. Cohen, Making a New Deal; Lipin, Workers and the Wild, 13. See also Frank, Purchasing Power.

16. See Green, World of the Worker, 101.

17. The statistical calculation for the growth in the white-collar labor force is based on data listed in a 1924–1926 Handbook of Labor Statistics occupational distribution table. Total data for professions under the categories ‘professional service’ and ‘clerical occupations’ (both categories include only white-collar professions) for 1880 were calculated and compared to totals (per million in population) from the same categories for 1920. US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (hereinafter USDL, BLS), Handbook of Labor Statistics, 420.

18. Murphy, Blackboard Unions, 4–5; Benson, Counter Cultures.

19. Zakim, “Business Clerk as Social Revolutionary,” 577.

20. The Outlook, November 26, 1919.

21. Bjelopera, City of Clerks, 18; See Zunz, Making America Corporate, for additional discussion of how white collar workers distanced themselves from blue collar laborers.

22. Bjelopera, City of Clerks, 113; Moskowitz, Standard of Living; Scanlon, Inarticulate Longings; Oregonian, April 11, 1920; and Sandusky Star, September 23, 1919.

23. Data calculated from USDL, BLS, Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 357 (May 1924): 457; Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 631. For dry goods prices, see USDL, BLS, Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 357 (February 1921): 58. Retail prices of dry goods were not taken by the BLS in 1913 or 1914. Date range: May 15, 1915–October 15, 1919.

24. USDL, BLS, Handbook of Labor Statistics, 705; Goldin and Katz, “Returns to Skill in the United States,” 36–39.

25. US Senate, Select Committee on Reconstruction and Production, Reconstruction and Production…, 941–944.

26. New York Times, December 14, 1919; Records of the City Council of Los Angeles, November 4, 1919.

27. Many white-collar consumers associated their commitment to hard work with masculinity. Participants in the wear overalls movement put on the garb of diligent labor, and claimed to stand for both productivity and manhood. As Judge William E. Fort, of the Birmingham, AL overall club declared, ‘This movement is a protest of American manhood against conditions which have become a shame.’ While a number of women participated in white-collar consumer activism, many men insisted on organizing through gender-segregated groups. For their part, women formed anti-high price housewives committees and ‘wear calico’ clubs. Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 14, 1920.

28. Many other white-collar workers used similar words to describe the middle class.

29. New York Times, December 31, 1922; Oregonian, April 11, 1920; Outlook, November 12, 1919; Detroit Free Press, April 21, 1920; Chicago Daily Tribune, April 17, 1920; and 59 Congressional Record , 5823.

30. Chicago Daily Tribune, April 7, 1921 and October 2, 1920; Chicago Daily News, March 19, 1920.

31. Chicago Daily Tribune, August 15, 1919.

32. US Senate, Select Committee on Reconstruction and Production, Reconstruction and Production …, 942; Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1919; March 1, 1920.

33. Most of the CTPA's activities depended less on dues than on volunteer hours, access to meeting places, and tenants' commitment to participate in rent strikes. The local school board allowed tenants to hold meetings in certain schools free of charge and a variety of Chicago politicians, including city councilmen and state legislatures, helped the organization lobby the state legislature to pass landlord-tenant reform. Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1919 and March 4, 1920.

34. Chicago Evening Post, May 4, 1921.

35. Chicago Daily Tribune, March 27, 1921 and April 25, 1921.

36. Newell, Chicago and the Labor Movement, 81.

37. Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, 209–232.

38. See Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, for discussion of how Chicago craftsmen contested the corporatization of the city's economy. Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, 1.

39. Senator Harold Kessinger, for instance, reiterated that ‘rents will not come down until buildings go up …’ Newspapers printed headlines, such as ‘Prices Forced Up’ and ‘Senate Investigation Has Field Day Uncovering Building Crookedness’. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 1, 1921; Chicago City Club Bulletin, October 10, 1921; Chicago Evening Post, May 10, 1921 and April 29, 1921; Chicago Journal of Commerce, May 7, 1921; and Report of the Illinois Building Investigation Commission , 3.

40. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 31, 1920.

41. Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1921.

42. Data taken from Montgomery, “Graft in the Building Trades,” 326–327. The Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Dailey Commission final report referred to more than 200 defendants ‘awaiting trial’. However, these reports were published before the cases would have reached conclusions. Economist Royal E. Montgomery, on the other hand, wrote about the Commission and its results six years after the end of its activities. Presumably, not all of these defendants were taken to trial, which might explain the discrepancy in numbers. Report of the Illinois Building Investigation Commission , 4; Wallin, The Builders' Story, 42–43.

43. Chicago Day Book, July 11, 1914.

44. Witwer, Shadow of the Racketeer, 9.

45. See also Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress.

46. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1921.

47. Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1921.

48. Montgomery, “The Landis Arbitration and Award,” 260–264.

49. For a discussion of how Landis was influenced by the Dailey Commission, see Montgomery, “The Landis Arbitration and Award,” 260–293. It is also worth noting that discord between builders and labor reached extreme levels. After the Landis Award, a series of bombings occurred that resulted in destruction of buildings, deaths, and arrests of labor leaders.

50. In many cases, Landis established a greater reduction in wages than contractors had asked.

51. Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, 245–254; Wallin, The Builders' Story, 47; Montgomery, “The Landis Arbitration and Award,” 263, 269, 273, 289; Merriner, Grafters and Goo Goos, 106; and see also Fine, ‘Without the Blare of Trumpets’, 216–219.

52. Konenkamp, “Chicago District Carpenters,” 1; Chicago Association of Commerce, Survey of the Construction Industries; “Your Opportunity to Perform a Great Service to Your Community” (pamphlet), Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers.

53. Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, 248.

54. Directory of Directors in the City of Chicago ; “Your Opportunity to Perform a Great Service to Your Community” (pamphlet), Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers.

55. Holsman and Parlette, Giant We-The-People and Judge Landis' Award, 6, 11, 22, 28, 43; “Your Opportunity to Perform a Great Service to Your Community” (pamphlet), Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers; “Talking points,” Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers; and New Majority, March 4, 1922.

56. Andrew Wender Cohen also notes that “By presenting [the] open shop drive as a war against corruption, collusion, and inefficiency, executives cast themselves as representative of the public interest.” Cohen, The Racketeer's Progress, 245; Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 12, 1923; Chicago Commerce, September 16, 1922; Clipping from Chicago Commerce, February 17, 1923, Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers; “Talking Points,” Landis Award Mic. Clippings and Pamphlets, Kenesaw M. Landis Papers; and Saturday Evening Post, September 1, 1923.

57. The Citizens' Committee of Tenafly and Englewood also operated New Jersey–New York commuter trains when railroad employees went on strike in April 1920. Philadelphia Inquirer, May 2, 1920; Sandusky Register, May 2, 1920; New York Tribune, April 16, 1920, April 17, 1920, and April 18, 1920; New York Times, April 14, 1920; Daily Princetonian, May 14, 1920; New York Evening World, April 13, 1920. Professions of reported participants taken from 1920 US Census.

58. Fine, ‘Without the Blare of Trumpets’, 216–219. Rosenwald to “Mr. Stern,” June 19, 1928; Thomas Donnelly to Rosenwald, June 11, 1927; Rosenwald to Louis Eckstein, January 5, 1927; Rosenwald to Thomas Donnelly, December 14, 1925; Rosenwald to T.E. Donnelly, December 17, 1926, all Folder 8, Box 10, Julius Rosenwald Papers; Newberry Library Financial Agent to Mr F.W. Armstrong, CCELA, December 14, 1921, Box 22, Records of the Newberry Library Financial Agent.

59. Economist C. Lawrence Christenson confirmed this percentage by examining building insurance records. Christenson, Collective Bargaining in Chicago: 1929–30, 24.

60. Rosenwald to Atkins, July 27, 1922, Folder 8, Box 10, Julius Rosenwald Papers; Philadelphia Inquirer, September 4, 1922.

61. After an unfriendly decision by the Illinois Supreme Court curtailed many of its practices in 1929, the Committee fell apart. The Landis Award Employers' Association took its place, but it controlled far fewer construction projects. Fine, ‘Without the Blare of Trumpets’, 219.

62. Drawing on statistics from C. Lawrence Christenson's Collective Bargaining in Chicago, 1929–30, Barbara Warne Newell summarizes that 90% of the Chicago construction industry was unionized in 1929. Newell, Chicago and the Labor Movement, 200.

63. Zieger, Republicans and Labor, 74–76; New Majority, March 3, 1923.

64. United Garment Workers of America, “Anti-Union Shop Favored by Swashbuckler Dawes,” 2.

65. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 16, 1923; Minute Men of the Constitution (MMC), First Fight of the Minute Men of the Constitution, 4.

66. Data refer to identifiable names and professions in the 1920 US Census. MMC, First Fight of the Minute Men of the Constitution.

67. MMC, First Fight of the Minute Men of the Constitution, 10.

68. The Billings Gazette, August 24, 1924.

69. MMC, First Fight of the Minute Men of the Constitution, 4–5, 10–11; Chicago Daily Tribune, May 9, 1923.

70. Barr to Dawes, April 9, 1923, Folder 2; Brsler to Dawes, April 10, 1923, Folder 2; Bowers to Dawes, August 22, 1923, Folder 2; Craig to Dawes, July 15, 1923, Folder 4; American Community Association to Dawes, July 26, 1923, Folder 5; Holdersby to Dawes, June 22, 1923, Folder 9; Hyer to Dawes, August 14, 1923, Folder 9; Ingram to Dawes, February 23, 1923, Folder 10, all Box 119, Dawes Papers.

71. See May, Unprotected Labor.

72. See, for example, “Clubs Co-Operating with H.C.L. in Various States,” Department of Justice Records (RG 60.11), High Cost of Living Division, National Archives II.

73. Woodcock to Dawes, December 14, 1923, Box 119, Folder 26, Dawes Papers; Harvard Crimson, April 28, 1923.

74. See Chicago Daily Tribune, April 27, 1923.

75. Bishop, “‘Strong Voices and 100 Per Cent Patriotism’,” 200.

76. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 20, 1917.

77. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 17, 1922, January 6, 1922, and December 16, 1921; Chicago Evening Post, May 7, 1920; and The Carpenter, April 1922. See also Newton-Matza, “Intelligent Radicals,” 119–149.

78. See New Majority, August 25, 1923, October 13, 1923, November 3, 1923, and November 10, 1923; MMC, First Fight of the Minute Men of the Constitution, 6.

79. Bridgemen's Magazine 24 (1924): 197; Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers, Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' Journal; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, “The American Revolution of 1923,” 419; and New Majority, November 10, 1923.

80. Woll to Dawes, December 17, 1923, Box 119, Folder 27, Dawes Papers; Rockford Morning Star, August 28, 1923.

81. November 14, 1923 entry, Dawes Diary, Box 119, Folder 32, Dawes Papers; Phalen to Dawes, undated, Box 119, Folder 19, Dawes Papers.

82. See Timmons, Portrait of an American, 214.

83. Chicago Daily Tribune, August 8, 1924.

84. Timmons, Portrait of an American, 215.

85. Chicago Daily Tribune, March 11, 1929.