Gender, Race and Labor in America: How One Labor Union Confronted Racial and Gender Conflict during the Second World War
Gender, Race and Labor in America: How One Labor Union Confronted Racial and Gender Conflict during the Second World War

Summary/Abstract: This study of race relations within one labor union in America addresses the concept of working-class Americanism and its journey from the economic hardship of the 1930s through the Second World War. As the study shows, the impact of working-class consciousness, gender and patriotism were almost as important as the sometimes overt fact of racism in shaping the labor union’s actions as it both controlled and defended its members. The actions of this labor union would be repeated in later years during the Civil Rights movement in America during the 1960s, when working-class institutions again negotiated in favor of racial equality, sometimes enduring the opposition of their own members. In this study, African-American workers prevailed in achieving a measure of equality at a time when some of their fellow workers demanded exclusionary racial employment. Although informal racial discrimination continued, African-American workers in this instance forced its union to commit itself to fighting racial discrimination, both publicly and within its own ranks.

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