Labor in Retreat: Class and Community Among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871–1929. By Youngsoo Bae. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. vii, 295. $26.95, paper.

Extract

“Why did the American labor movement decline so drastically in the 1920s?” (p. 1). Youngsoo Bae seeks to understand the transformation of the American labor movement by following the path of the men's garment industry union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (ACW), from its origins as a progressive industrial union to an “AFL-type business union” (p. 2) by the end of the 1920s.