Intelligent and Honest Radicals: The Chicago Federation of Labor and the Politics of Progression

Intelligent and Honest Radicals explores the Chicago labor movement’s relationship to Illinois legal and political system especially as seen through the eyes of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL). Newton-Matza focuses on the significant era between the great strike in 1919 and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration and the beginning of the New Deal in 1933. He brings to light a number of victories and achievements for the labor movement in this period that are often overlooked. Newton-Matza shows the Chicago labor movement as a progressive agency intent on changing the workers’ world through words and peaceful actions, drawing upon their personal experiences and ideology.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Ghosts of Upheaval: Chicago Law and Labor in the Nineteenth Century Chapter Two: Whoopla Ho! : The Creation of the Chicago Federation of Labor and into the Twentieth Century Chapter Three: Everybody Is Watching Us Now: The CFL and the Dream of a Labor Party Chapter Four: The Crack of the Whip: The Battle against the Labor Injunction Chapter Five: The Chicago Controversy: The Landis Award Chapter Six: A Brisk War over a New Constitution for Illinois Conclusion: Out of the Twenties and into the New Deal Bibliography

About the Author :
Mitchell Matza received his PhD in history from The Catholic University of America.

Review :
This book sheds important new light on the Chicago labor movement and its role in shaping Illinois labor legislation, politics, and legal practices toward unions in a neglected era. In Intelligent and Honest Radicals, Mitchell Newton-Matza chronicles the origins and early days of the Chicago Federation of Labor, beginning with the events in the nineteenth century that led to its foundation, resulting in a compelling study of a long-neglected historical period in recent Chicago history. Newton-Matza highlights the importance of this period and its later relevance. This is bottom-up history at its best. Newton-Matza argues for a new historical examination of the early twentieth century in Chicago. By demonstrating that the 1920s were not a vast wasteland for labor, but were instead the stepping-stone for the 1930s’ accomplishments, he rebuilds our understanding of the legal and labor history of the period. It was at Chicago’s Labor Day Parade that I first understood what the day truly meant, and was filled with pride for those who built our nation with their hands. Mitchell Newton-Matza takes us back in time to the dramatic evolution of the Chicago Federation of Labor from 1919 through 1933, smoldering with the violent upheavals of its day. He shows why it took a city of ‘big shoulders’ to make it manifest. From the specters of Haymarket and Pullman to the Illinois ‘Con-Con,’ workers tried with growing degrees of desperation to feed their families in the face of low wages and high costs. As Depression-era leaders in Washington like Hattie Caraway fought for the workers of America, so did the men and women of the Chicago labor movement. Newton-Matza tells their story. An intelligent and honest book. Dr. Newton-Matza has produced an important reconsideration of working-class activity and thought during the 1920s, filling in the gap between a period of well-documented working-class activity in the 1910s and the resurgence of the labor movement in the 1930s. Newton-Matza ably demonstrates that, despite political setbacks, a core labor movement continued to evolve and develop in the 1920s.