Is class outmoded as a basis for understanding labor history? This collection emphatically answers, "No!" These thirteen essays delve into subjects like migrant labor, religion, ethnicity, agricultural history, and gender. Written by former students of preeminent labor figure and historian David Montgomery, the works advance the argument that class remains indispensable to the study of working Americans and their place in the broad drama of our shared national history.

In the only modern study synthesizing nineteenth-century American laborhistory, Bruce Laurie examines the character of working-class factionalism, plebian expectations of government, and relations between the organized few and the unorganized many. Laurie also examines the republican tradition and the movements that drew on it, from the General Trades Unions in the age of Jackson to the Knights of Labor later in the century.

Is class outmoded as a basis for understanding labor history? This collection emphatically answers, "No!" These thirteen essays delve into subjects like migrant labor, religion, ethnicity, agricultural history, and gender. Written by former students of preeminent labor figure and historian David Montgomery, the works advance the argument that class remains indispensable to the study of working Americans and their place in the broad drama of our shared national history.

Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states in which African-American males enjoyed the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Why did the Bay State at the time integrate its public facilities and public schools as well? Beyond Garrison, first published in 2005, finds answers to these important questions in unfamiliar and surprising places. Its protagonists are not the leading lights of American abolitionism grouped around William Lloyd Garrison, but lesser men and women in country towns and villages, encouraged by African-American activists throughout the state. Laurie's fresh approach trains the spotlight on the politics of such antislavery advocates. He demonstrates their penchant for third-party politics with a view toward explaining the relationship between social movements based on race, class, and nationality, on the one hand, and political insurgency, on the other.

Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states in which African-American males enjoyed the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Why did the Bay State at the time integrate its public facilities and public schools as well? Beyond Garrison, first published in 2005, finds answers to these important questions in unfamiliar and surprising places. Its protagonists are not the leading lights of American abolitionism grouped around William Lloyd Garrison, but lesser men and women in country towns and villages, encouraged by African-American activists throughout the state. Laurie's fresh approach trains the spotlight on the politics of such antislavery advocates. He demonstrates their penchant for third-party politics with a view toward explaining the relationship between social movements based on race, class, and nationality, on the one hand, and political insurgency, on the other.

Is class outmoded as a basis for understanding labor history? This collection emphatically answers, "No!" These thirteen essays delve into subjects like migrant labor, religion, ethnicity, agricultural history, and gender. Written by former students of preeminent labor figure and historian David Montgomery, the works advance the argument that class remains indispensable to the study of working Americans and their place in the broad drama of our shared national history.

In the only modern study synthesizing nineteenth-century American laborhistory, Bruce Laurie examines the character of working-class factionalism, plebian expectations of government, and relations between the organized few and the unorganized many. Laurie also examines the republican tradition and the movements that drew on it, from the General Trades Unions in the age of Jackson to the Knights of Labor later in the century.

Is class outmoded as a basis for understanding labor history? This collection emphatically answers, "No!" These thirteen essays delve into subjects like migrant labor, religion, ethnicity, agricultural history, and gender. Written by former students of preeminent labor figure and historian David Montgomery, the works advance the argument that class remains indispensable to the study of working Americans and their place in the broad drama of our shared national history.

Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states in which African-American males enjoyed the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Why did the Bay State at the time integrate its public facilities and public schools as well? Beyond Garrison, first published in 2005, finds answers to these important questions in unfamiliar and surprising places. Its protagonists are not the leading lights of American abolitionism grouped around William Lloyd Garrison, but lesser men and women in country towns and villages, encouraged by African-American activists throughout the state. Laurie's fresh approach trains the spotlight on the politics of such antislavery advocates. He demonstrates their penchant for third-party politics with a view toward explaining the relationship between social movements based on race, class, and nationality, on the one hand, and political insurgency, on the other.

Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states in which African-American males enjoyed the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Why did the Bay State at the time integrate its public facilities and public schools as well? Beyond Garrison, first published in 2005, finds answers to these important questions in unfamiliar and surprising places. Its protagonists are not the leading lights of American abolitionism grouped around William Lloyd Garrison, but lesser men and women in country towns and villages, encouraged by African-American activists throughout the state. Laurie's fresh approach trains the spotlight on the politics of such antislavery advocates. He demonstrates their penchant for third-party politics with a view toward explaining the relationship between social movements based on race, class, and nationality, on the one hand, and political insurgency, on the other.