| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

R. Alton Lee. Farmers vs. Wage Earners: Organized Labor in Kansas, 1860–1960. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. Pp. xiv, 340. $55.00.

Scholarly studies of labor history by state are rare, and those focused on predominantly agrarian states are rarer still. Historians tend to refrain from writing such works for legitimate reasons, as these types of studies can constrain themes in labor history by abiding by seemingly artificial political boundaries. With trades, industries, professions, and economic systems transcending state lines, how can a history of labor in one state illuminate the history of the labor movement or that of wage workers in the United States generally? R. Alton Lee's valuable book addresses that question, although perhaps not overtly. Lee is interested in analyzing the important contributions that Kansas workers made for the cause of economic justice for themselves, their families, and for future working people in the state. His ability, however, to place the struggles of Kansas workers in a national labor movement and working-class context provides useful insight into the history of labor at the local and regional level. Through the prism of a century of major trends in wage workers' experiences in Kansas, Lee is able to treat the successes and failures of the labor movement outside of the customary terrain that historians tend to traverse, revealing the local conditions that aided the advance of labor's interests and those elements that thwarted labor's goals. Therefore, his study should be viewed more in conjunction with labor history surveys written by such scholars as Steve Babson, Robert Zieger, and Jeremy Brecher rather than more narrowly focused monographs.

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