Date of Award

1-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of History

Content Description

1 online resource (viii, 395 pages) : illustrations (some color), maps.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Gerry Zahavi

Committee Members

Richard Hamm, David Hochfelder

Keywords

labor history, Schenectady, Labor unions, Manufacturing industries, Radicalism

Subject Categories

United States History

Abstract

This dissertation examines the roots of radicalism among workers in Schenectady, New York, from 1886 to the 1906 sit-down strike organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). As early as the 1880s, the city’s workers embraced the inclusive industrial union methods of the Knights of Labor. After the decline of the Knights, Schenectady’s workers joined the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) yet showed their support for radical direct action methods within the AFL. The roots of Schenectady’s active and militant labor community stretched back to the days before Thomas Edison established the foundations of General Electric in the city in the 1880s – and grew afterwards. This work contributes to existing accounts of labor history in two ways. First, the story of early skilled, semiskilled, and especially unskilled workers at General Electric has not been told. A register of workers dating to the 1890s, a recent donation from GE Power Systems to the Museum of Innovation and Science, now allows for an in-depth look at unskilled workers at General Electric in Schenectady during the 1890s – the interim between the Knights and the coming of the AFL, when unskilled workers, both male and female, relied only on quitting to control their lives. Once unskilled male and female workers had the opportunity to join AFL unions after 1900, they did so. This study also sheds light on Schenectady’s role in the founding of the IWW and the German American community’s early backing of both the Socialist Labor Party and the IWW. Additional support for the IWW came from Socialist Party members led locally by Henry Jackson, an important militant labor leader who employed radical direct action methods and attempted to bring the city’s workers into the IWW. In exploring the confluence of the city’s Socialist history, workers’ adoption of direct labor action practices at the point of production, and the commitment of local labor leaders to industrial unionism, this dissertation reveals how radicalism became mainstream among Schenectady’s workers from 1886-1906.

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