Puerto Rican Labor History 18981934: Revolutionary Ideals and Reformist Politics

(Hardback)

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Puerto Rican Labor History 18981934 presents a history of the organized labor movement in Puerto Rico from the United States colonial domination of the island in 1898 to the Great Depression in the early 1930s. Although the most prominent Puerto Rican labor leaders in the early twentieth century were strongly influenced by revolutionary European socialist and anarchist ideology, the organized labor movement as represented by the Federacin Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico and the Partido Socialista became a fundamentally reformist trade unionist campaign that relied heavily on the democratic rights guaranteed by the United States government and the support of the American Federation of Labor. Rather than advocating for the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of private property and the wage labor system, and its replacement by a socialist egalitarian cooperative society free of centralized government authority, the organized workers movement focused on the immediate struggle for higher wages and better working conditions by means of the organization of labor and participation in electoral politics.

Reviews

Sanabria offers a fresh insight on Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labors influence in the development of the labor movement during the first three decades of American rule over Puerto Rico. His work is detailed, incisive, and nuanced, and more importantly, accessible to a broad public. -- Harry Franqui-Rivera, Bloomfield College
Puerto Rican Labor History 1898-1934: Revolutionary Ideals and Reformist Politics reinvigorates the study of Puerto Rican working-class history by offering a comprehensive analysis of the labor movements two most important institutions at the turn of the twentieth century, the Federacin Libre de Trabajadores and the Partido Socialista. By carefully tracing their histories, contradictions, and their members intellectual production, Carlos Sanabria offers new perspectives that will, without a doubt, inform future debates in the fields of labor and Puerto Rican studies. -- Jorell Melndez Badillo, University of Connecticut
Carlos Sanabrias book, Puerto Rican Labor History, 1898-1934, represents a contribution to the debates and interpretations of the history of the labor movement in Puerto Rico. This book places into perspectives and explores labors struggles in the broad context of social, economic, and political transformations occurring in Puerto Rico during the period under study. It should be a basic acquisition for academic and research libraries dealing with labor history in Latin America and the Caribbean. -- Amlcar Tirado, University of Puerto Rico

Author Bio

Carlos Sanabria is former associate professor in Caribbean studies at The City University of New York.