Solidarity or Survival: American Labor and European Immigrants, 1830-1924

(Hardback)

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Solidarity or Survival is on firmest ground when it discusses the American Federation of Labour and the movement for a literacy test and then a quota system to restrict eastern and southern European immigration. A careful analysis, and the book's best chapter, reveals that it was a much-divided AFL which endorsed a literacy test for immigrants in 1897. In addition, Lane convincingly describes how political, economic, and demographic conditions' between 1904 and 1906 eroded the liberal position on immigration restrictions and contributed heavily to labour unity on the issue.... Lane offers a well-written, generally thoughtful view of US labour's attitudes towards immigration over a century.... His account of the ideology of the early labour movement is useful even if the idea of fraternity or solidarity is not always evident.-The International History Review
The title of this study accurately reflects the conflicting positions taken by members of the American trade union movement toward European immigration during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In line with their traditions of republican egalitarianism and international solidarity, skilled workers initially welcomed immigrants, especially those from Northern and Western Europe. As economic and technological change weakened the position of skilled craftsmen in the late 19th century and as the focus of immigration shifted to Southern and Eastern Europe, the labor movement increasingly supported efforts to limit and ultimately stop all migration to the US. Although some trade unionists maintained a commitment to the concept of working-class solidarity, most labor leaders opted to exclude newcomers from America as a means of guaranteeing the economic survival of their organizations. This volume is recommended to college libraries....-Choice
"Solidarity or Survival is on firmest ground when it discusses the American Federation of Labour and the movement for a literacy test and then a quota system to restrict eastern and southern European immigration. A careful analysis, and the book's best chapter, reveals that it was a much-divided AFL which endorsed a literacy test for immigrants in 1897. In addition, Lane convincingly describes how political, economic, and demographic conditions' between 1904 and 1906 eroded the liberal position on immigration restrictions and contributed heavily to labour unity on the issue.... Lane offers a well-written, generally thoughtful view of US labour's attitudes towards immigration over a century.... His account of the ideology of the early labour movement is useful even if the idea of fraternity or solidarity is not always evident."-The International History Review
"The title of this study accurately reflects the conflicting positions taken by members of the American trade union movement toward European immigration during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In line with their traditions of republican egalitarianism and international solidarity, skilled workers initially welcomed immigrants, especially those from Northern and Western Europe. As economic and technological change weakened the position of skilled craftsmen in the late 19th century and as the focus of immigration shifted to Southern and Eastern Europe, the labor movement increasingly supported efforts to limit and ultimately stop all migration to the US. Although some trade unionists maintained a commitment to the concept of working-class solidarity, most labor leaders opted to exclude newcomers from America as a means of guaranteeing the economic survival of their organizations. This volume is recommended to college libraries...."-Choice

Author Bio

A.T. LANE is lecturer in History in the School of European Studies at the University of Bradford in England.