Harry Bridges; The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the United States

by Charles P. Larrowe

This book is a portrait of one of the most colorful & effective labor leaders of our time. 40 years of American labor history.

Genres: Labor

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading this book as part of a research project so I'm much more forgiving than I would be purely as a leisure reader. It's extremely well researched but not terribly well organized. The period he's writing about, the West coast labor movement from the late 1920s through the '70s, is the kind of stuff Hollywood likes to make up. Harry Bridges is a much larger than life character, but there's so much good material that the author has trouble leaving things out and tends to get sidetracked. He could have written 10 books with stuff he touches on in this one. If you're interested in Bridges and/or the San Francisco General Strike of the 1930s, you must read this. There are parts I almost can't believe - a hand grenade salesman who partnered with the SF police, Bridges' attorney being cited for contempt by the judge during his opening argument. The battle for Rincon Hill makes the '60s riots look like childs' play. But I spent a lot of time just trying to remember what this person had done earlier or where he was first introduced. If you're interested in labor history in general, read the Haymarket Riots.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not rated well when it came out, partly because an aging radical labor unionist Harry Bridges himself hated the book, and partly because it seemed to be all over the place as far as organization. Still, I found the reading to be compelling. It relies mostly on interviews with associates of the Bridges, the founder and longtime leader of the west-coast International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, and focuses on several episodes of Bridges union career: 1) the foundational 1934 strike 2) the four attempts to deport him back to his native Australia by the United States government and supporting right-wing forces like the American Legion, which centered on trying to prove that he was a Communist which he always denied 3) the attempts to build a wartime labor-peace to win the war against fascism 4) his "mellowing" during the 1950s-60s from militancy.

Scholars have noted that the book reads as gossip and does not really engage with the whys of radical labor's decline, and never really seeks to answer if Bridges was actually a Communist Party member given that he followed most of the party lines even as he felt confident about bucking the party when he felt it necessary, even as party members were abound in the union. The exchanges between prosecuters and Bridges during his deportation trials are very interesting, as he never threw the Communists under the bus and defended them as good unionists but at the same time said he would not follow party-lines which would hurt the union, which history has generally agreed with him on. Bridges would always defer to the rank and file, which explains his longtime survival even in his "mellower" years. The book is worth a read if one keeps in mind the criticisms of the work, and that it was written at a time near the end of Bridges career yet still "fresh" in the early 70s.

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun--Bridges was an incredible character and if the book is a bit too taken up with courtroom drama at the expense of the ins and outs of the union I still enjoyed it and was infuriated by it by turns.

[Janie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only 3 stars because the writing is so clunky but the insight into this era of the labor movement is interesting. Many of the dynamics are the same today.