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The Working Class in American History
Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922
Chicago's packinghouse workers were not the hopeless creatures depicted by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle, but active agents in the early twentieth century transformation that swept urban industrial America.
In his case study of Chicago's Union Stockyards, Barrett focuses on the workers - older skilled immigrants, new immigrant common laborers, migrant blacks, and young women workers - and the surrounding neighborhoods. The lives and communities of these workers accurately convey the experience of mass-production work, the quality of working-class life, the process of class formation and fragmentation, and the changing character of class relations.
Because Packingtown's struggle for existence was linked directly to the character of work and employment in the industry, unionization played an important role in the lives of these workers. Although unionization was associated with both improving the quality of life and creating a viable community, workers were divided by race, ethnic identity, and skill. Work and Community in the Jungle discusses a wide range of social, economic, and cultural factors that resulted in class cohesion and fragmentation.
Addressing the broader problem of relations between capital and labor, Barrett demonstrates the effects of government intervention on labor organization, negotiation, and conflict. Shop-floor workers banded together to develop new strategies and forms of organization in their struggle with management for control.
Barrett employs contemporary social surveys and a computer-assisted analysis of census data to illustrate the physical and social characteristics of the workers' environment. He analyzes this data in the context of the relationships between community, ethnicity, family, work experience, and industrial characteristics.
In his case study of Chicago's Union Stockyards, Barrett focuses on the workers - older skilled immigrants, new immigrant common laborers, migrant blacks, and young women workers - and the surrounding neighborhoods. The lives and communities of these workers accurately convey the experience of mass-production work, the quality of working-class life, the process of class formation and fragmentation, and the changing character of class relations.
Because Packingtown's struggle for existence was linked directly to the character of work and employment in the industry, unionization played an important role in the lives of these workers. Although unionization was associated with both improving the quality of life and creating a viable community, workers were divided by race, ethnic identity, and skill. Work and Community in the Jungle discusses a wide range of social, economic, and cultural factors that resulted in class cohesion and fragmentation.
Addressing the broader problem of relations between capital and labor, Barrett demonstrates the effects of government intervention on labor organization, negotiation, and conflict. Shop-floor workers banded together to develop new strategies and forms of organization in their struggle with management for control.
Barrett employs contemporary social surveys and a computer-assisted analysis of census data to illustrate the physical and social characteristics of the workers' environment. He analyzes this data in the context of the relationships between community, ethnicity, family, work experience, and industrial characteristics.
- GenresHistoryLaborNonfiction
14 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1987
About the author
James R. Barrett
28 books2 followersJames R. Barrett is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Illinois.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
May 12, 2008
This book maps two three decades of struggle between workers at Chicago's Union Stockyards and the owners of the five or six conglomerate meat-packing firms. I was particularly interested in this book because I live in the heart of what was once Packingtown, which is intimately covered in this book, only half a mile from the old stockyards.
Barrett attempts to craft a close-to-comprehensive framework of both work and life outside of work for the amalgamation of immigrant groups that staffed the slaughterhouses and unions; his picture is vivid, detailed, and compelling. This book would probably be less exciting if you didn't walk or drive these streets every day but remains a strong study of corporate conglomeration, scientific management, immigrant experiences, and labor struggles regardless.
Barrett attempts to craft a close-to-comprehensive framework of both work and life outside of work for the amalgamation of immigrant groups that staffed the slaughterhouses and unions; his picture is vivid, detailed, and compelling. This book would probably be less exciting if you didn't walk or drive these streets every day but remains a strong study of corporate conglomeration, scientific management, immigrant experiences, and labor struggles regardless.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review