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Reviews / Comptes Rendus
| Ileen A. DeVault, United Apart: Gender and the Rise of Craft Unionism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004)
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| ILEEN DEVAULT's latest book returns to the workplace and labour stoppages in the late 19th- and early 20th-century United States. Identifying herself with the "new institutionalists" who have tried to bring the insights of a more cultural approach into the workplace, DeVault focuses our attention on 40 cross-gender strikes in four industries where there is a clear gender division of labour but also an interdependent production process. She examines strikes from all over the United States in the clothing, textile, boot and shoe, and tobacco industries. As she notes in her conclusion, gender and class are her primary focus in trying to understand the role of gendered experiences in the creation of national labour movements by the turn of the century. |
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In her introduction DeVault clearly explains her approach and theoretical underpinnings. In addition to identifying with the "new institutionalists" she also credits women's labour history and feminist post-structuralism as important influences. Acknowledging that her work builds on previous studies of gendered occupations, DeVault aims to bring a more comparative approach to the subject of gendered work experiences. At the same time she examines "the ways in which the leaders of the labor movement utilized those gendered experiences in their attempts at the turn of the twentieth century to bring together the first long-lasting national union movement." (7) Using Iris Young's adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of the "series," De Vault analyses how "workers manifested their gender, race, ethnic and class identities both simultaneously and serially, one after another." Thus the analysis focuses not only on events and their serial occurrence but also on the impact of external events both in "igniting" individual consciousness of belonging to particular categories and subsequent actions taken. (7) In other words categories of identity can be multiple rather than one dominating the others. |
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While Chapter 1 introduces us to the four industries through four strikes, Chapter 2 tackles the Knights of Labor providing a somewhat revisionist but not entirely new approach to the question of the Knights' views of women. Focusing on the Knights' declining years DeVault finds fewer positive options for women compared to the work of Mary Blewett (shoe workers of Lynn, Massachusetts) and Susan Levine (carpet weavers of Philadelphia). Highlighting the domestic ideology of the Knights and their preoccupation with fighting the American Federation of Labor [A F L ] for members, DeVault sees the glass as half empty rather than half full, emphasizing male dominance and the lack of women's voices in strikes such as the Cohoes, New York strike of 1887, among others. In this reviewer's opinion, a critical view of the Knights needs to be more balanced with recognition of their more "progressive" intentions, if not results. |
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Chapter 3 is a key chapter because it makes the case for the masculine nature of the AFL's craft unionism. DeVault examines a number of strikes that exemplify the connection of the social construction of skill to manhood in all four industries, particularly in cases where mechanization, most often associated with female, child, and immigrant labour, threatened to undermine the position of skilled workers. The Clark thread mill strike of 1890 and the 1902 Rhode Island strike of thread mill workers, for example, readily fit the idea of exclusive male craft unionism while other disputes such as the 1892 Chicago boot and shoe strike do not. In the latter case the inclusion of women in strike activities and the women's militance brought victory to the workers, suggesting that the shoe industry might be an exception. In the case of tailors, while the rhetoric suggested the need for equal pay for women workers and women's union participation, the strikes, according to DeVault, provide evidence that the Journeyman Tailors Union [JTUA] actually followed craft union principles and defined membership in the trade so narrowly that most women did not qualify. (87) A key problem for the tailors was the portability of their work and the ambiguous status of women, often relatives, who were classed as "helpers" in an industry that could be home-based; many in the JTUA wanted to eliminate home work in favour of shop-based work. The Cigar Makers International Union faced a similar problem though the employer had more formal control over workers and production than the tailors did in home-based production. The close integration of men and women workers in the tenements and the large proportion of women workers sometimes produced strong challenges to gender-based craft unionism. Eventually, however, the union members voted to deny membership to tenement house workers, as well as the Chinese, and left the question of union membership for workers on moulding machines to the local level thus eliminating the less skilled women workers. Clearly craft unionism was a complex phenomenon; yet DeVault provides a nuanced portrait that supports her argument that craft unionism spelled exclusion for women in most cases. |
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The remaining chapters examine ethnicity and race, geography, the role of families, and attempts to broaden the AFL. Chapter 4 on ethnicity and race is perhaps one of the weakest. DeVault points out examples in different strikes of the permutations and combinations possible when ethnicity, for example, reinforced (or weakened) class and gender ties. Her use of "ethnicity" as referring to culture and "race" as a term "for situations in which 'ethnicity' is not strong enough" (106) leads to confusion as does her use of the term "racial ethnicity" (110) which is never defined. In describing a short strike of 300 African American tobacco workers in North Carolina in 1898, for example, DeVault describes their "total ethnic solidarity" as an explanation for success. In trying to avoid the essentialism of racial categories DeVault has made her analysis more difficult to follow. In addition, as she notes in the conclusion, gender and class have been privileged in this study, suggesting some awareness of the weaknesses in chapter 4. |
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Perhaps one of the more interesting findings comes in chapter 5 where her research indicates that women, immigrants, and workers not defined as skilled play a greater role in the "industrial periphery." Lacking close contact (or any contact) with the AFL and craft unionism, these workers identified with their own factory or industry and eschewed divisions of gender and occupation. In more heavily industrialized areas closer to the AFL, attempts to broaden the national union movement through organizations such as the National Women's Trade Union League were largely unsuccessful; thus, DeVault argues, the AFL provided the model for all further attempts to organize working women, a model which excluded them and other workers. |
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United and Apart challenges readers to think more broadly about gender and class in labour disputes. While the author acknowledges that she has chosen a sample of cross-gender strikes, it is not totally clear to the reader how the choices were made. Indeed, DeVault states that the strikes are skewed toward longer strikes where more information can be found and towards failures since successful strikes left less evidence. Readers may also differ with her views of the Knights of Labor and will find chapter 4 on race and ethnicity less successful than other chapters. Finally, readers will certainly be puzzled by the decision to include extremely blurry reproductions of newspaper photos of strike activities. Nevertheless DeVault's book deserves a careful read by labour historians. |
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Linda Kealey
University of New Brunswick |
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