Workers' Movements in the United States Confront Imperialism: The Progressive Era Experience

Abstract

In 1898, the American Federation of Labor feared that colonial expansion would militarize the republic and undermine the living standards of American workers. Subsequent expansion of industrial production and of trade union membership soon replaced the fear of imperial expansion with an eagerness to enlarge the domain of American unions internationally alongside that of American business. In both Puerto Rico and Canada important groups of workers joined AFL unions on their own initiative. In Mexico, where major U.S. investments shaped the economy, anarcho-syndicalists enjoyed strong support on both sides of the border, and the path to union growth was opened by revolution. Consequently the AFL forged links there with a labor movement very different from itself. Unions in Mexico became tightly linked to their new government, while World War I drove the AFL's leaders into close collaboration with their own. The Pan-American Federation of Labor was more a product of diplomatic maneuvering than of class solidarity.

David Montgomery: A Labor Historian's Legacies

“…45 The Global When graduate students worked with Montgomery-at least in Pittsburgh-they routinely did a required field in what he termed "Comparative Labor History." But they also signaled, however subtly, a new effort to situate the story of the U.S. working class in a global, transnational context.…”

“…He had engaged with historians worldwide from his early sojourn at Warwick with Thompson to later stints in Italy, Brazil, France, The Netherlands, and back in England. 49 Like so many new turns in his scholarship, the transnational grew from a deeply rooted and conceptually capacious grasp of the development of capitalism in local, national, and transnational contexts. 47 A number of his students had embarked on transnational and comparative projects of their own, as the new labor history itself developed a more international focus.…”

“…The direction was, however, unmistakable. 45 The Global When graduate students worked with Montgomery-at least in Pittsburgh-they routinely did a required field in what he termed "Comparative Labor History." The readings waded deeply into the social and labor history of Britain-Thompson and Hobsbawm, of course, but also the Webbs and the Hammonds and a host of younger scholars.…”

“…But Montgomery offered not an Olympian view of these developments-though the broad implications were clearly delineated-but a characteristically gritty account of local engagement between the AFL and national and local labor movements in Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico. 49 Like so many new turns in his scholarship, the transnational grew from a deeply rooted and conceptually capacious grasp of the development of capitalism in local, national, and transnational contexts. In the 1980 MARHO interview, he had stepped back to consider the trajectory of his own work.…”