preview

The Making Of American Exceptionalism Summary

Decent Essays

Politics was also central in American labor movements. In the book, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century, author Kim Voss shows how and why a successful labor movement never gained political strength as it did in England and France. The United States had similarities with its labor movements with its European counterparts. However, it was mainly because of the failure by the Knights of Labor that caused the American labor movement to go a different route. Unlike Europe, where labor movements were often supported, the United States did not support these groups. It did not witness the rise of a powerfully large socialist party either. The Knights of Labor emerged as a labor organization that welcomed all …show more content…

Others said that it was due to “the national leaders and the ease with which non-working-class members could obtain membership. These middle-class members, he argues, betrayed the rank and file”. Another is that many of the local assemblies failed if they were in towns that had one-industry. One final component to the decline was the employer’s associations. “These associations had no interventionist state to constrain them, and they had the benefits of rapid economic concentration at their disposal. Disproportionate resources and strategic leverage put the Knights in a nearly hopeless situation, against which they struggled by appealing to small employers. This strategy, which drew upon the ideology of working-class republicanism, did not work, and it led to internal schisms that rent the organization apart”. This soon led to other unions becoming weak in challenging political obstacles. However, if there were unions that were including all kinds of workers, in the early 1900s, then more unions would try to go against the obstacles in

Get Access