Grand Army of Labor

Iconoclasm has had a moment since 2020, as activists have challenged monuments to the Lost Cause. They have also questioned monuments to the cause won, including fawning statues of a beatified Abraham Lincoln in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. Should we tear down those monuments? In Grand Army of Labor, Matthew E. Stanley seeks to build back better, exploring how left-wing political and labor movements since 1866 have lauded the Union army as bearers of a social revolution with a legacy that could be used in contemporary struggles. This is less a history of memory than an account of movements seeking a usable past in the American Civil War. As such, this book provides useful pen portraits of movements frequently ignored in the U.S. history survey, including the Virginia Readjuster party, the Greenback-Labor party, the Knights of Labor, the Socialist Labor party, Populists, Socialists, the American Federation of Labor (Afl), the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communist party. U.S. survey instructors should take note; this book lets you put workers back into the bearded blur that still dominates survey textbooks about the United States between 1866 and World War I

Art history · Communism · Economic history · Labor history · Labor relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · American History and Culture · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

• The 1886 Southwest Railroad Strike, J. West Goodwin's Law and Order League, and the Blacklisting of Martin Irons

  Open Access•Cynthia Pearson•International Review of Social…•2023

  Add to list