Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class (Working Class in American History)

Lause, Mark A.

ISBN 10: 0252080866 / ISBN 13: 9780252080869

Published by University of Illinois Press, 2015

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # 33-34TOP52614

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class (Working Class in American History)
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252080866
• ISBN 13: 9780252080869
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 18 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

Monumental and revelatory, Free Labor explores labor activism throughout the country during a period of incredible diversity and fluidity: the American Civil War.

Mark A. Lause describes how the working class radicalized during the war as a response to economic crisis, the political opportunity created by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the ideology of free labor and abolition. His account moves from battlefield and picket line to the negotiating table, as he discusses how leaders and the rank-and-file alike adapted tactics and modes of operation to specific circumstances. His close attention to women and African Americans, meanwhile, dismantles notions of the working class as synonymous with whiteness and maleness.

In addition, Lause offers a nuanced consideration of race's role in the politics of national labor organizations, in segregated industries in the border North and South, and in black resistance in the secessionist South, creatively reading self-emancipation as the largest general strike in U.S. history.

About the Author

Mark A. Lause is a professor of American history at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of A Secret Society History of the Civil War and Race and Radicalism in the Union Army.