Intelligent and Honest Radicals

The Chicago Federation of Labor and the Politics of Progression

By (author) Mitchell Newton-Matza

Publication date:

26 September 2013

Length of book:

254 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739168028

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.

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

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.