THE RISE OF THE JEWISH WORKING CLASS, NEW YORK, 1881-1905 (LABOR).
Item
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Title
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THE RISE OF THE JEWISH WORKING CLASS, NEW YORK, 1881-1905 (LABOR).
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Identifier
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AAI8708297
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identifier
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8708297
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Creator
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KOSAK, HADASSA.
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Contributor
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Eric Foner
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Date
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1987
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, United States
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Abstract
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This study examines the process of industrialization as experienced by Jewish immigrants during the first twenty-five years of their mass migration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. As a labor force with a distinct cultural and socio-economic background, the immigrants were confronted with the unfamiliar modes of production prevailing in New York's garment industry and by the industrial values of discipline and individualism. The ultimate result of this experience was a process of the transformation of the majority of the immigrants into wage workers. This study identifies those values and expectations that guided the newcomers in their critiques of and resistance to the norms and ethos of industrial capitalism. It also explores the social and political organizations formed by the immigrants as they adjusted to their new status as wage workers.;The examination of these aspects reveals a unique bond of mutuality formed between the immigrant workers, moulded by the inherited ethos of communal values brought over from Eastern Europe and strengthened and re-tested by the communal networks that assisted the newcomers in the new land. Through these links, workers brought their struggles into the community and, although resistance to capitalist norms was crystallized in the work place, the opposition to the capitalist ideology expanded to include the entire community in the struggle for a new social order. The Jewish community thus became an arena for labor's struggle, a cause in which ostracism, boycott and material assistance at times of strikes were essential weapons. The role of the community in labor's struggle was reinforced by the Jewish immigrant workers' demographic density on the Lower East Side and amplified by a shared experience in the garment industry. This industry was highly fragmented and volatile, small shops were the rule and clear lines of demarcation between employer and worker had not yet made their mark. These are among the factors which explain the origins and the success of industrial unionism in the ranks of Jewish workers. Moreover, their experience represents an important juncture in the history of the American labor movement. Jewish immigrants entered the American labor force at a critical moment which marked the beginning of labor's movement toward exclusionary craft unionism. Unlike their counterparts in steel or mining under the control of corporations, Jewish workers of the period successfully forged an alternative work culture.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
