Michael H. Frisch is a professor and Senior Research Scholar Emeritus at the University of Buffalo. He is the author of A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft And Meaning of Oral and Public History and Portraits in Steel. Daniel J. Walkowitz is a professor emeritus at New York University. He is the author of Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity and coeditor of Memory and the Impact of Political Transformations in Public Spaces.

"This book represents the pick of a growing crop. The authors are . . . inspired by the belief in the capacity of ordinary people to overrule the directors of the corporation and the state."--Michael Kazin, The Nation "These essays represent the highest state of the art. . . . They are mandatory reading for scholars and students alike."--Bruce Laurie, Industrial and Labor Relations Review

• Introduction Michael H. Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz ixThe Social System of Early New England Textile Mills: A Case Study, 1812-40 Jonathan Prude 1Artisan Republican Festivals and the Rise of Class Conflict in New York City, 1788-1837 Sean Wilentz 37The Origins of the Sweatshop: Women and Early Industrialization in New York City Christine Stansell 78The Uses of Political Power: Toward a Theory of the Labor Movement in the Era of the Knights of Labor Leon Fink 104The Triumph of Commerce: Class Culture and Mass Culture in Pittsburgh Francis G. Couvares 123Trade-Union Evangelism: Religion and the AFL in the Labor Forward Movement, 1912-16 Elizabeth and Kenneth Fones-Wolf 153"The Customers Ain't God": The Work Culture of Department-Store Saleswomen, 1890-1940 Susan Porter Benson 185Dress Rehearsal for the New Deal: Shop-Floor Insurgents, Political Elites, and Industrial Democracy in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Steve Fraser 212Catholics, Communists, and Republicans: Irish Workers and the Organization of the Transport Workers Union Joshua B. Freeman 256Conflict over Workers' Control: The Automobile Industry in World War II Nelson Lichtenstein 284Notes on Contributors 312