Customer Reviews

A Social History of the Laboring Classes: From Colonial Times to the Present (Problems in American History)

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"A Social History of the Laboring Classes" is a welcome addition to US Labor history but it is weak, spotty, & fails to address the general lack of a serious labor history of the USA. To a large extent, the shortcomings of the book are the shortcomings of American Labor History writing. There are over 1,000 books on Black Slavery and we have hundreds of histories of the Union movement. Despite the wealth of documents available, there are several basic subjects that are inexcusably ignored! It may seem amazing to many people that there isn't a single serious history of White Indentured Servitude. Although this history is ignored (how many were there? What was their life like? Who were they? How did they live?), this fact does not prevent academic historians from presenting statements about them both qualitative and quantitative. In an age when most PhD dissertations and graduate papers are mere busy work and ritual for satisfying degree requirements, one marvels at the fact that some student with a zest for true history research and writing would decide to be the voice of the untold numbers of desparate people who were indentured servants.

One positive aspect of the book is for the first time it boldly states that slavery is part of US labor history. Now if we can get slave historians and labor historians to underestand this reality...

My criticism of this book is that it pretends to be something it is not, a social history of the American laborer. A lot of primary research needs be done before any social or cultural history of American Labor is possible. E.P. Thompson's masterpiece "The Making of the English Working Class" is a shinning example aspiring US labor historians could learn a lot from about being a scholar. Instead of presenting assumptions as fact, rather than be a slave to theory or ideology as most American (especially Labor) historians do today, Thompson explained in detail the reasons for conclusions he reaches.

By all means read this book but do not think you will leave it with more answers than questions.