The World of the Worker: Labor in Twentieth-Century America

by James R. Green

The World of the Worker illuminates workers' lives at home, on the job, and in the voting booths. A new preface enhances this social, cultural, and political history: an unparalleled picture of working people during the turbulent rise and fall of the labor movement.

Genres: History, Labor, Nonfiction, American History

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

James Robert Green (November 4, 1944 – June 23, 2016) was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Green received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1972. Green studied under the legendary historian C. Vann Woodward, and became acquainted with the leftist historians Eric Hobsbawm and Herbert Gutman. During this time he also was involved in the anti-war movement, which eventually sparked his interest in the history of radicalism in the United States.

Green's research focuses on radical political and social movements in the U.S. (including new social movements), as well as the history of labor unions in the United States. Green writes social and political history from "the bottom up." He writes from a leftist theoretical standpoint.

In 1987, in addition to continuing on the faculty at UMass-Boston, Green was named a lecturer at the Harvard Trade Union Program (now called the Labor and Worklife Program) at Harvard Law School.

In 1995, Green founded the Labor Resource Center at UMass-Boston.

In 1998, Green was named a Fulbright scholar and taught at the University of Genoa in Italy.

Green was a member of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA). He was a vice president of LAWCHA from 2001 to 2003 and its president from 2003 to 2005.

Reviews

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate the honesty of Green's history. As he makes clear in the preface, his "concern is not to establish a revolutionary tradition where one does not exist, but rather to describe conflict over power where it did exist." The World of the Worker does not fabricate radicalism or impose modern revolutionary sentiment on the past; rather, it is a sincere attempt to illustrate the over-arching situation workers found themselves in during the twentieth century. He does not waste time documenting the biographies of union leaders or the structure of union bureaucracies. His "emphasis is the relationship between the leaders and masses of workers. Debates about union leadership and misleadership ignore the fact that most of the important breakthroughs in labor history [...] originated at the base. By taking a rank-and-file approach [he hopes] to emphasize the creativity and tenacity of ordinary workers acting together with leaders of their own choosing." This is a radical history of a not-necessarily-radical movement, and as such it is vital to understand how radical politics did emerge from the labor movement.

[39 year old twenty one pilots fan · Rating 5 out of 5]

well written insight into worker realities and communities. very important read

[Thomas Baughman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good overview of American Labor history in the twentieth century. The book needs to be updatedto include the years 19080-2000.