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Under the Iron Heel
The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2022
About this book
2022 International Labor History Association Book of the Year
A dramatic, deeply researched account of how legal repression and vigilantism brought down the Wobblies—and how the destruction of their union haunts us to this day.
In 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World was rapidly gaining strength and members. Within a decade, this radical union was effectively destroyed, the victim of the most remarkable campaign of legal repression and vigilantism in American history. Under the Iron Heel is the first comprehensive account of this campaign.
Founded in 1905, the IWW offered to the millions of workers aggrieved by industrial capitalism the promise of a better world. But its growth, coinciding with World War I and the Russian Revolution and driven by uncompromising militancy, was seen by powerful capitalists and government officials as an existential threat that had to be eliminated. In Under the Iron Heel, Ahmed White documents the torrent of legal persecution and extralegal, sometimes lethal violence that shattered the IWW. In so doing, he reveals the remarkable courage of those who faced this campaign, lays bare the origins of the profoundly unequal and conflicted nation we know today, and uncovers disturbing truths about the law, political repression, and the limits of free speech and association in class society.
A dramatic, deeply researched account of how legal repression and vigilantism brought down the Wobblies—and how the destruction of their union haunts us to this day.
In 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World was rapidly gaining strength and members. Within a decade, this radical union was effectively destroyed, the victim of the most remarkable campaign of legal repression and vigilantism in American history. Under the Iron Heel is the first comprehensive account of this campaign.
Founded in 1905, the IWW offered to the millions of workers aggrieved by industrial capitalism the promise of a better world. But its growth, coinciding with World War I and the Russian Revolution and driven by uncompromising militancy, was seen by powerful capitalists and government officials as an existential threat that had to be eliminated. In Under the Iron Heel, Ahmed White documents the torrent of legal persecution and extralegal, sometimes lethal violence that shattered the IWW. In so doing, he reveals the remarkable courage of those who faced this campaign, lays bare the origins of the profoundly unequal and conflicted nation we know today, and uncovers disturbing truths about the law, political repression, and the limits of free speech and association in class society.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Ahmed White
Ahmed White teaches labor and criminal law at the University of Colorado Boulder and is author of The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America.
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Frontmatter
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Contents
ix -
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Introduction: Face to Face with Tragedy
1 -
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Chapter 1 Socialism with Its Working Clothes On: Industrial Capitalism, Radical Unionism, and the Roots of Repression
12 -
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Chapter 2 Protecting the Business People: Class, Law, and the Criminalization of Radical Industrial Unionism
49 -
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Chapter 3 In the War of Capital against Labor Someone Must suffer: The War and the IWW
83 -
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Chapter 4 I’ll Take neither Mercy nor Pity: Repression and the IWW during the Red Scare
126 -
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Chapter 5 Dealing the Death Blow: Repression and the IWW after the Red Scare
162 -
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Chapter 6 Between the Drowning and the Broken: Punishment, Law, and the Legacies of Repression
190 -
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Conclusion: A Vision We Don’t Possess
223 -
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Acknowledgments
237 -
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Abbreviations
241 -
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Notes
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Bibliography
313 -
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Index
335
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 19, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9780520382411
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
360
eBook ISBN:
9780520382411
Keywords for this book
labor rights; unionize; workers; legal repression; industrial; american; united; states; local; society; class; campaign; vigilantism; revolution; russian; militancy; capitalism; world; war; persecution; political
