From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States [Hardcover]

Priscilla Murolo (Author), A. B. Chitty (Author), Joe Sacco (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2001

An engrossing history of American labor for a new generation. Priscilla Murolo and A. B. Chitty have created an engrossing, comprehensive history of labor in the United States, capturing the full sweep of working people's struggles, from indentured servants in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley. Written with great narrative force, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend surveys the historic efforts and sacrifices that working people made to win the rights we take for granted today: basic health and safety standards in the workplace, fair on-the-job treatment for men and women, the minimum wage, and even the weekend itself. A definitive new work of American history, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend also brings labor history to life with thirty pages of dramatic "cartoon narratives"—by internationally acclaimed artist Joe Sacco—that highlight key moments and figures throughout American history. 30 pages black-and-white illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Management's perpetual dream of cheap labor explains the invention of slavery, though few may couch it in those terms. Drawing such connections with impressive evenhandedness and investigative and analytic acuity, this readable popular history covers U.S. labor from precolonial times to the late 1960s, with two short chapters on the last few decades. Brandishing little-known facts, the authors reshape common views of social history. Remarkably, for instance, hundreds of black indentured servants came to the colonies fromAfricain the 1600s, and throughout the century, as the "peculiar institution" was legalized, these free men and women were forced into slavery. Less astonishing but still significant, the Wobblies pushed as much for free speech as union organizing, and their newspapers were illustrated by famous avant-garde artists. Sometimes the authors simply highlight an obvious fact that has languished in obscurity for instance, that the American Revolution was sparked by the discontent of working people, not the wealthy or landowning, or that many defenders of slavery believed that all labor should be enslaved. Murolo (who teaches American history at Sarah Lawrence College) and Chitty (a librarian at Queens College) gracefully handle a broad range of subject matter Chinese railroad labor is considered alongside housework and steel-mill work making it easier to understand the complex historical relationships between work, gender, ethnicity, race, immigration and sex. (Sept.)Forecast: Accessible to high school students as well as adults, this extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history and labor literature could become an evergreen paperback comparable to Howard Zinn's award-winning A People's History of the United States.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Chitty (librarian systems officer, Queens Coll., CUNY) and Murolo (history, Sarah Lawrence Coll.) have constructed a useful but flawed history of labor in America, starting with the arrival of Columbus in 1492 and ending with the election of George Walker Bush to be the 43rd President of the United States. The book's greatest strength is in putting a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor. Also useful is the book's list of suggested readings. Its greatest weaknesses include the authors' obvious bias against business for example, they focus on class privilege, industrial capitalism, and the accumulation of wealth by a limited number of individuals while ignoring the vast number of small business owners who, like their workers, are challenged to survive in a rapidly changing global economy and the lack of footnotes, citations, or a thorough bibliography, all of which could be useful for students, scholars, and citizens interested in increasing their knowledge of this very important topic. Perhaps a better buy for both academic and public libraries would be Rekindling the Movement: Labor's Quest for Relevance in the Twenty-First Century (LJ 7/01). Not a priority purchase. Norman B. Hutcherson, California State Univ., Bakersfield
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: New Press; aFirst Edition First Printing edition (September 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565844440
• ISBN-13: 978-1565844445
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Working class life is a constant struggle, April 5, 2002

By 

J. Grattan "Ideas can move the world" (Lawrenceville, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (Hardcover)

Clearly the theme for this book is that life has been and continues to be a struggle for working people in the United States. The upper class, whether the pre-Revolutionary landed aristocracy or the more recent industrial or post-industrial capitalistic class, through its power, privilege, and wealth, has largely dominated and controlled the working class irrespective of wage or slave labor. The democratic promise of the nation's founding has taken a beating in this arrangement.

The authors attempt the impossible: the description of working class life in general over the last five hundred years with snapshots of countless names and events to provide the sustenance. The tone for the laboring class was set early on in our nation's history. The brutal and deadly nature of both indentured and permanent servitude is vividly brought home by the authors' careful description of their conditions and often futile resistance. Yet the fissures within the working class itself are evident throughout the book. Immigration and slavery and resulting ethnic conflicts and racism are shown through any number of positions taken and violent incidents to have been devastating to working class solidarity. In addition to ethnicity and race, the authors do not shrink from gender and sexual orientation issues. And the trampling of Native Americans fortifies the authors' arguments for the abuse of power.

To counter power and to assert their own voice, workers have formed countless organizations such as political parties (Socialist, Greenback), advocacy and reform groups (Ten Hour Leagues, producer and consumer cooperatives), community groups (Black Panthers, fraternal orders), as well as labor unions. The authors provide enough detail for the reader to see a U.S. labor movement at odds with itself in terms of basic philosophies. It has adopted any number of approaches: the political of the Knights of Labor, the syndicalist of the IWW, the bargaining of the AFL, the CIO's social unionism, and the post-WWII social-accord, not to mention narrow, craft-based unions versus industrial. Of course the issues of native-born versus ethnic or racial differences have been played out in the labor movement.

The authors accurately point out that there have been few periods where the democratic promise for the American working class has made sustained headway. Interestingly enough they comment little on WWI as being a period where workers called for making the world safe for democracy. The U.S. government was forced to back the right of workers to elect representation committees within workplaces. The two periods in our history where workers and their unions gained the most power, that is WWI and WWII, were followed by periods of either suppression or containment. And in both cases red-baiting was a primary instrument of their foes with some conservative unions leading the charge against their more radical brethren. Clearly these were huge turning points not overly emphasized by the authors.

While the book is consistent in showing that working class life has been a constant struggle, there is a lack of an attempt to understand the basis of continued setbacks. The issue of American "exceptionalism," the failure to achieve a stronger, permanent political position, is relevant in any history of the American working class. The Western European working class managed to tame the worst excesses of capitalism. The role of the mass media and the educational system might well be factors to consider. In addition, the attempt to be inclusive of most relevant players and events in the working class story results in what seems like a mountain of details, which can cloud the bigger story. One might question how much insight can be achieved into the American working class from this book alone. It seems that some previous background would have to be assumed.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview, January 9, 2007

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G. Brown (Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (Paperback)

The authors distinct voices, coupled with Sacchos<sp> illustrations make this a packed informative read. I would guess that they are wobbly leaning, so no punches are pulled when it comes to the actual history of unions, their rise and corruption. Basically a great reference and read.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Labor of love, December 28, 2004

By 

David Cohen "Dave C" (New Jersey, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (Paperback)

This is a highly detailed account of the history of American workers and their efforts to organize and improve their lives. Murolo & Chitty clearly know the material and approach it from a strongly held left-of-center point of view. Their book covers centuries and contains a treasure trove of information - as well as some wonderful illustrations by Joe Sacco. It also probably contains more different acronyms than any book I've ever read (complete with a six-page list of them).

The book suffers from the fate of many general histories - it covers a lot of ground without much variety to make for more flavorful reading. It doesn't help that the authors keep insisting on reminding us that women and minorities quite often have gotten the short end of the stick; that is a recurring theme that is pounded into the ground.