Table Of ContentAMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM?
AlsobyRick Halpern
DOWNONTIlEKILLING FLOOR:Black and White Workers in
Chicago's Packing Houses
Also byJonathan Morris
THE POLITICALECONOMYOFSHOPKEEPING INMILAN
American
Exceptionalism?
US Working-Class Formation in an
International Context
Edited by
Rick Halpem
LecturerinAmericanHistory
University College London
and
Jonathan Morris
LecturerinModern European History
UniversityCollegeLondon
First publishedinGreatBritain1997by
MACMILLANPRESSLTD
Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG21 6XS and London
Companiesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld
Acataloguerecordforthis bookisavailablefrom theBritishLibrary.
ISBN 978-1-349-25586-3 ISBN 978-1-349-25584-9 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-1-349-25584-9
First publishedinthe UnitedStatesofAmerica 1997by
ST.MARTIN'S PRESS,INC.,
ScholarlyandReferenceDivision,
175FifthAvenue,New York, N.Y.10010
ISBN978-0-312-17470-5
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Americanexceptionalism? :USworking-classformation inan
internationalcontext/editedbyRick HalpernandJonathanMorris.
p. cm.
"Thisbookarisesoutofthe 1995CommonwealthFundConference
held atUniversityCollegeLondonandtheseriesofroundtable
discussionsheldbytheseminaronComparativeLabourand Working
Class History atLondon'sInstituteofHistoricalResearch"-P.
Includesindex.
ISBN978-0-312-17470-5(cloth)
I.Workingclass-UnitedStates-History-Congresses.
I.Halpern,Rick. II.Morris,Jonathan, 1961
HD8066.A727 1997
305.5'62'0973---dc21 97-5320
CIP
Selection,editorialmatterand Chapter1©Rick HalpernandJonathanMorris 1997
Chapters2-12©MacmillanPressLtd 1997
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
The Persistence of Exceptionalism: Class Formation and
the Comparative Method
Rick Halpern and Jonathan Morris
2 The Dodo and the Phoenix: A Fable of American
Exceptionalism 14
Michael Zuckerman
3 Working-Class Formation and American Exceptionalism,
Yet Again 36
Ira Katznelson
4 Why Is There No Labour Party? Class and Race in the
United States and Australia 56
Robin Archer
5 It Is 'the Working Class Who Fight All the Battles':
Military Service, Patriotism, and the Study of
American Workers 76
Roger Horowitz
6 The Limits of Liberalism: Working-Class Formation in
Britain and the United States 101
Neville Kirk
7 Present at the Creation: Working-Class Catholics
in the United States 134
Leslie Woodcock Tentler
8 Religion and the Formation of the Italian Working Class 158
John Pollard
9 Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality and the New
Immigrant Working Class 181
James R. Barrett and David Roediger
10 'Amiable Peasantry' or 'Social Burden': Constructing
a Place for Black Southerners 221
James R. Grossman
v
VI Contents
11 South African and US Labour in the Era of the Second
World War: Similar Trends and Underlying Differences 244
Peter Alexander
12 Apropos Exceptionalism: Imperial Location and
Comparative Histories of South Africa and the
United States 270
Robert Gregg
Index 307
Acknowledgements
This book arises out of the 1995 Commonwealth Fund Conference held
at University College London and the series of roundtable discussions
held by the seminar on Comparative Labour and Working Class History
at London's Institute of Historical Research. We would like to thank all
those who attended and contributed to those sessions. Special thanks are
extended to the University College London Graduate School for its sup
port of both endeavours.The conference also received financialassistance
from the British Academy,the David Bruce Centre for American Studies
at the University of Keele, the History Faculty of Cambridge University,
the Journal ofAmerican Studies and the Institute of United States Studies
at the University of London. We also would like to thank the various
members oftheCommonwealth FundCommittee, Nazneen Razwi, Rachel
Aucott and Simon Renton for their advice and assistance.
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Peter Alexander received his PhD from the University of London and
was a postgraduate fellow at London's Institute of Commonwealth Stud
ies. Currently, he is a Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford,
where he is working on a comparative study of miners in Alabama and
the Transvaal.
Robin Archer isFellow in Politics atCorpus Christi College, Oxford. He
is the author of Economic Democracy: The Politics ofFeasible Socialism
(1995) and currently is working on a book about the failure of the Amer
ican union movement to establish a labour party.
James Barrett teaches American and comparative labour history at the
University of illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His earlier works include
Steve Nelson, American Radical (1981) and Work and Community in the
Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers (1987).He is completing abio
graphy ofthe American communist William Z. Foster and working on a
bookof essays dealing with the identities and personal lives ofimmigrant
workers in the United States during the twentieth century.
Robert Gregg teaches American History at the RichardStockton College
ofNew Jersey. He is the author of Sparks From theAnvil ofOppression:
Philadelphia's African Methodists and Southern Migrants (1993) and
numerous articles on African-American history.
James Grossman is Director of the Dr William M. Scholl Center for
Family and Community History at the Newberry Library, Chicago. He is
the author of Land ofHope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great
Migration (1989) and, most recently, 'A Chance to Make Good': African
Americans, 1900-1930 (1997). Currently he is working with Kathleen
Neils Conzen on a project entitled 'Race and Citizenship: The Life and
Death ofRobert Cromwell'.
Rick Halpern is Lecturer in American History at University College
London.He is the authorofDown on the Killing Floor:Black and White
Workers in Chicago's Packinghouses (1997) and co-author (with Roger
Horowitz) ofMeatpackers:AnOralHistoryofBlackPackinghouseWorkers
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
and TheirStrugglefor RacialandEconomic Equality (1996).Currently he
is working on a study of racialised labour in the sugar industry.
Roger Horowitz is Associate Director of the Center for the History of
Business,Technology,and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library in
Wilmington, Delaware. He is the author of 'Negro and White, Unite and
Fight!' A Social History ofIndustrial Unionism in Meatpacking (1997),
and co-author (with Rick Halpern) of Meatpackers: An Oral History of
Black Packinghouse Workersand TheirStrugglefor Racial andEconomic
Equality (1996). His current research concerns the effect of military ser
vice on working-class formation.
Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at
ColumbiaUniversity.HismostrecentbooksincludeLiberalism's Crooked
Circle: Letters to Adam Michnik (1996), and (co-edited with Pierre
Birnbaum) Paths ofEmancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (1995).
He is finishing a book about the making and character of post-New Deal
American liberalism.
Neville Kirk is Reader in Economic and Social History at Manchester
MetropolitanUniversity. Heistheauthor ofTheGrowthofWorking Class
Reformism in Mid-Victorian England (1985) and Labour and Society in
Britain and the USA (1994). He is currently writing a book on labour
in modem Britian, and developing his comparative research focus upon
labourandsociety inBritain, theUnitedStates, andAustralia, 1880-1940.
Jonathan Morris is Lecturer in Modem European History at University
College London. His publications include ThePolitical Economy ofShop
keeping inMilan (1993) and various articles on Italian and European his
tory. He has co-edited (with Robert Lumley) a collection of essays on
Liberal Italy and the 'Mezzogiomo' (1997). Currently he is working on a
comparative study ofthe politics of theEuropean petite bourgeoisieinthe
twentieth century.
John Pollard is Professor of History at Anglia Polytechnic University.
He is the author of The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-32:A Study
inConflict(1985).HeiscurrentlyworkingonabiographyofPopeBenedict
XV (1914-22).
David Roediger teaches working-class history and chairs the American
Studies Program atthe University of Minnesota.His recent books include
