Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 Book

I guess I have more of a thing for labor history than I previously thought. I generally enjoyed this exploration of workers' lives and the rise of unions in the 1930's.

Cohen argues that industrial workers in Chicago lived mostly in ethnic enclaves that they were heavily dependent on as social and economic networks. They experienced mass cultural phenomenon such as radio and movies, but these did not necessarily homogenize them, at least in the short term. These communities were pretty insular, and things like insurance companies, banks, and grocery stores tended to be locally owned and operated. The workers usually weren't in unions and had little interaction with the state or politics.

The key event that destroyed this lifestyle was the Great Depression. Ethnic communities could not handle the high unemployment numbers, the collapse of local banking and insurance companies, the evictions, and the major demands for charity. Feeling let down, ethnic workers increasingly turned to the government, especially the Democratic Party, for help. The result under FDR was the New Deal, which was not simply imposed from above but demanded and facilitated by workers' actions from below. Workers also reacted to the Depression by unionizing in massive numbers, aided by the federal government.

This is a great example of top-down and bottom-up histories coming together in a coherent narrative. Cohen is a great writer who organizes her argument very logically. She also includes the numerous, varied experiences of different groups in the population while also building a coherent narrative that generally applied to all workers.