Abstract
Too often in the labor movement, we tend to consider “labor” as the union leadership, when in fact it should be considered the men and women workers who built and continue to build this nation. Larkin, in his companion book to Where We Lived, provides a lushly illustrated history of the working class in America. It serves as a great reminder of where we have been. This book brings to mind the old Pete Seeger song, The Banks Are Made of Marble, for it amply demonstrates that it was the workers and not the bosses who built America.
The book is divided into five parts, each dealing with a particular form of work prominent in the 100 years between 1830 and 1930: farming, crafts, mining, manufacturing and transportation, and a “catch all” category that includes shopkeepers, peddlers, clerks, and even prostitutes. Throughout the first-person stories, some from the family histories of the author and his wife, there are lavish illustrations of what work was like during this formative period of the Republic.
While unions and the concept of collective action do not play a major role in this book, it is still useful for activists to get a guided tour of what life was before the union movement began in the 1880s and flourished in the 1930s. It also shows what life might have been like for workers if there had been no union to bring about the eight-hour day, weekends off, health benefits, workman’s compensation, and an end to child labor. One can only look in the eyes of the workers and see the exhaustion and despair that, in some cases, twelve-hour days and six days a week could bring about.
As organized labor tries desperately to prevent the rollback of safety, health, and collective bargaining rights, especially in the face of concerted efforts by the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch Brothers, and their allies on Congress, it is useful at times to remember how far we have come as a society. Larkin provides us with a graphic picture of early work life and thus is not only a well done documentation of history but also an inspiration to all of us in the labor movement to make sure the clock is not turned back to the “bad old days.”