A01=Michael Kazin
Author_Michael Kazin
barony
bricklayers
BTC
building trades
Building Trades Council
California
carpenters
Category=NHK
closed shop
construction
craftsmen
eight hour day
elections
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
institutions
James Rolph
labor action
labor history
labor ideology
labor movement
labor question
masons
open shop
organized labor
organizing
P. H. McCarthy
painters
Progressive Era
racism
radical ideas
reformers
reforms
rise to power
San Francisco
San Francisco government
social conflict
strike
trade unions
trades
tradesmen
unionism
urban history
working class
working conditions
Product details
- ISBN 9780252060755
- Weight: 426g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Dec 1988
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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From the depression of the 1890s through World War I, construction tradesman held an important place in San Francisco's economic, political, and social life. Michael Kazin's award-winning study delves into how the city's Building Trades Council (BTC) created, accumulated, used, and lost their power. He traces the rise of the BTC into a force that helped govern San Francisco, controlled its potential progress, and articulated an ideology that made sense of the changes sweeping the West and the country. Believing themselves the equals of officeholders and corporate managers, these working and retired craftsmen pursued and protected their own power while challenging conservatives and urban elites for the right to govern. What emerges is a long-overdue look at building trades as a force in labor history within the dramatic story of how the city's 25,000 building workers exercised power on the job site and within the halls of government, until the forces of reaction all but destroyed the BTC.
Michael Kazin is a professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University and the coeditor of Dissent. His books include War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 and American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.
