In 1907, pioneering labor historian and economist John Commons argued that U.S. management had shown just one "symptom of originality," namely "playing one race against the other." In this eye-opening book, David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch offer a radically new way of understanding the history of management in the United States, placing race, migration, and empire at the center of what has sometimes been narrowly seen as a search for efficiency and economy. Ranging from the antebellum period to the coming of the Great Depression, the book examines the extensive literature slave masters produced on how to manage and "develop" slaves; explores what was perhaps the greatest managerial feat in U.S. history, the building of the transcontinental railroad, which pitted Chinese and Irish work gangs against each other; and concludes by looking at how these strategies survive today in the management of hard, low-paying, dangerous jobs in agriculture, military support, and meatpacking. Roediger and Esch convey what slaves, immigrants, and all working people were up against as the objects of managerial control. Managers explicitly ranked racial groups, both in terms of which labor they were best suited for and their relative value compared to others. The authors show how whites relied on such alleged racial knowledge to manage and believed that the "lesser races" could only benefit from their tutelage. These views wove together managerial strategies and white supremacy not only ideologically but practically, every day at workplaces. Even in factories governed by scientific management, the impulse to play races against each other, and to slot workers into jobs categorized by race, constituted powerful management tools used to enforce discipline, lower wages, keep workers on dangerous jobs, and undermine solidarity.Painstakingly researched and brilliantly argued, The Production of Difference will revolutionize the history of labor race in the United States.

In Working Toward Whiteness, David R. Roediger brings the history of his now-classic The Wages of Whiteness, foward into the twentieth century. Roediger recounts how American ethnnic groups considered white today -- including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans -- once occupied a liminal racial status in their new country, and only gradually received the status of 'white' Americans. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants -- the racist real estate agreements that keep immigrants out of white neighborhoods -- Roediger explores the murky realities of race in twentieth-century America. Working Toward Whiteness charts the strange transformation of these new immigrants into the 'white ethnics' of American today.

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In the half-century since it was written, Hall's Labor Struggles In The Deep South, published here for the first time, has become an underground classic among activist historians writing on the South and on working people. Hall—journalist, organizer, rebel, professor, and poet—brings to life the dramatic early 20th century struggles of the waterfront workers of New Orleans and the militant timber workers of Louisiana and East Texas. Writing about events in which he played a central role and about the broader history of Southern labor, Hall describes many of the finest hours of integrated industrial unionism in the US and the role of the IWW in creating fragile unity across racial lines. The always lively narrative is heightened by dozens of rare IWW cartoons and other period illustrations. Also includes a sampling of Hall's articles on labor history and education as well as his editorial opinions, poems, and “factful fables,” revealing other aspects of Hall's remarkable creativity, humor, imagination, and lifelong dedication to libertarian socialism. David Roediger's introduction expands our knowledge of Hall and his influence and assesses his legacy in the light of current-day struggles against white supremacy and wage-slavery. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Southern cotton planters and Northern textile mill owners maintained what has been called "an unholy alliance between the lords of the lash and the lords of the loom." This collection of essays focuses on the central role of slavery in the early development of industrialization in the United States as well as on the interconnections among the histories of African Americans, women, and labor...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Gathers selections from the writings of fifty African American authors depicting white people and their actions, beliefs, and role in society

Product Description: Towards the Abolition of Whiteness collects David Roediger’s recent essays, many published here for the first time, and counts the costs of whiteness in the past and present of the US. It finds those costs insupportable. At a time when prevailing liberal wisdom argues for the downplaying of race in the hope of building coalitions dedicated to economic reform, Roediger wants to open, not close, debates on the privileges and miseries associated with being white...read more

Product Description: This contributor volume brings the best work of such established historians as Morris Schappes, Nathan Godfried, and Eric Foner together with the newer voices of Elizabeth Sharpe and Jennifer Bosch. Its eleven essays challenge the boundary between the older, institutional labor history and the more recent social histories of working people...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A compendium of primary and secondary souces revisits the Haymarket Square Riot in its centennial year.