Quest for "Just and Pure Law"

John P. Enyeart is Assistant Professor of History at Bucknell University.

"Thoroughly researched in regional newspapers, archives, labor publications, and worker memoirs . . . [The Quest for 'Just and Pure Law'] suggests that, despite their prejudices, Rocky Mountain workers' social democratic culture unified them more than workers elsewhere." - Donald W. Rogers (The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era) "This engaging book challenges interpretations about working-class politics in the late nineteenth century . . . [Enyeart's] uncovering of the deep sympathies of western workers for an alternative economic future is a remarkable achievement." - Rosemary Feurer (Journal of American History) "[C]hock full of worthy discoveries and provocations." - Leon Fink (American Historical Review) "John Enyeart's The Quest for 'Just and Pure Law' marks not only a welcome resurgence of labor history, but also an important new interpretation of working class political culture in the West. It is a book that will surprise many historians and force a rethinking of what we thought we knew about working people in the developing West." - Richard White (Stanford University) "Enyeart does a fine job of redrawing the political landscape of the Rocky Mountain West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He uncovers and documents a rich vein of pragmatic, union-centered politics that was remarkably durable and influential at local, state and regional levels. He challenges standard histories of trade union political activism, western working-class syndicalism, and political socialism in the West and gives such important figures as Joe Buchanan and Alex Fairgrieve the more complex rendering they deserve. This work will set in motion a whole series of debates about working-class politics that deserve the close attention of historians and others." - Shelton Stromquist (University of Iowa) "This is a good and useful book and it deserves a wide readership." - David M. Emmons (Histoire sociale / Social History)

• Contents Acknowledgements000 Introduction 000 Chapter 1: "He Who Would Be Free, Himself Must Strike the Blow": Joseph Buchanan, Rocky Mountain Knights, and Notions of Working-Class Justice 000 Industrialization and the Meaning of Value000 "Power Put in Motion"000 "Making a Respectable Living Wage"000 A "Foolish Prejudice"000 Buchanan and Powderly000 Conclusion000 Chapter 2: To "strike at the polls": Local and State Politics, Regional Unity, and Working-Class Political Action000 The Labor Party Experiment000 Finding Political Power000 Mormonism, Unemployment, and the Eight-Hour Fight000 Populism and Pragmatism000 Conclusion 000 Chapter 3: The "militant, progressive, liberal spirit of western unionism": Mutualism, Socialism, and Regional Activism000 Building a Regional Movement000 Mutualism000 Socialism and Socialists000 Company Towns000 "Anarchy and Hell"000 The ALU, Metropolitan Unionism, and Unskilled Workers000 Conclusion 000 Chapter 4: "Sabotage, 'Jackass Tactics' Indeed!": Progressive Unionists, Syndicalists, and the Advance of Social Democracy000 "Industrial Suicide"000 Violence, Wages, and Hours000 Closed Shops, Contracts, and Labels000 The WFM000 City Politics000 State Politics000 Final Renunciations: Free Speech, Sabotage, and Joe Hill000 Conclusion000 Chapter 5: "There is a war every day for the workers--there always has been": The Persistence of Progressive Unionism000 Ethnocentrism, Racism, and Corruption000 Ludlow and Industrial Peace000 From Company Town to Urban Centers000 William Dunne000 Conclusion000 Conclusion000 Notes000 Index000