| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Georg Leidenberger. Chicago's Progressive Alliance: Labor and the Bid for Public Streetcars. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2006. Pp. viii, 202. $35.00.
Georg Leidenberger rejects the largely pessimistic attitudes of labor historians toward Progressive-era politics. He argues that political fragmentation was neither foreordained nor a natural product of urban growth. In Chicago, during the debate over municipal ownership of streetcar franchises, organized labor and middle-class reformers formed an alliance that challenged corporate interests and promoted the common good.	1
The potential for this alliance originated during the 1890s when the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) increased solidarity among its membership. This united front allowed the CFL to claim a greater role in public affairs. Its strength became evident once the teamsters revived the sympathy strike as a tool in labor disputes. During ensuing conflicts with traction companies, the teamsters gained control of the streets because they received support from entire working-class communities. The widespread support resulted from the union's success portraying traction companies as exploiters of consumers and workers. Having adopted this policy, they gained additional middle-class support from the teachers union, whose members objected to the corruption resulting from the streetcar franchise because it siphoned money away from the schools and teachers' salaries. Allied with middle-class reformers, Chicago's labor movement transcended narrow trade-based interests and supported a metropolitan-wide social vision that championed the role of workers as citizens.	. . .

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