| Book Review | The Michigan Historical Review, 33.2

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| Book Review | The Michigan Historical Review, 33.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

Clayton Sinyai. Schools of Democracy: A Political History of the American Labor Movement. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. 292. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $22.50.

When Alexis de Tocqueville lauded America's republican traditions in the 1830s, he applauded the young nation's flourishing voluntary associations that promoted civic education. Clayton Sinyai's political history of American labor unions emphasizes how workers made their organizations into "schools of democracy" (p. 3) that likewise fostered civic education. Schools of Democracy draws upon a wide knowledge of secondary literature to illuminate the union movement's contributions to American political culture. The American Federation of Labor (AFL), which many labor historians have castigated as hidebound and unimaginative, emerges as courageous and visionary, while the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), typically seen as innovative and open-minded, is portrayed as having initially benefited in terms of growth from its reliance on government support, but as having ultimately been hobbled by its dependence on that support.

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