Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.2 | The History Cooperative

Laboring for Freedom: A New Look at the History of Labor in America. By Daniel Jacoby. (Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 1998. x, 209 pp. Cloth, $61.95, isbn 0-7656-0251-2. Paper, $22.95, isbn 0-7656-0252-0.)

This sweeping survey of American labor from colonial times to the present by the economic historian Daniel Jacoby draws on previously published work on labor, law, and economics to challenge the Marxian principle at the core of the new labor history that collective struggle, or class, defines the nation's working people. Jacoby finds the pursuit of freedom and individual liberty to be far more important than class. He follows that theme through three sections chronologically arranged around the shift from republicanism to freedom of contract from approximately 1770 to the Civil War, the tensions of contract from the Civil War to the eve of the New Deal, and the collective rights regime of the New Deal and post-World War II eras. 1

Much of this book is familiar, and some sections—notably the second part on the labor process, paternalism, and education—lose sight of the central thesis. When the theme of contractual rights does appear in this section, it comes off as forced and labored; Jacoby strains to convince the reader that relatively obscure court cases on individual rights bore more importance than we are usually given to believe. . . .

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