As Furious as the Last Horseman of a Legion of the Bitter-End

This chapter centers on Daniels's interviews with Birmingham industrialist Charles F. DeBardeleben and labor organizer William Mitch of the United Mine Workers (UMW) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). DeBardeleben's biography begins with his grandfather, Daniel Pratt, and his father, Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben. Both were industrialists whose investments in coal, iron, and steel contributed to the development of Birmingham. Charles F. DeBardeleben followed in his father's footsteps as a staunch antiunionist. He claimed to be a paternalist yet used fences and armed guards to isolate his workers, resulting in a deadly shooting at the Acmar mine of his Alabama Fuel and Iron Company in 1935. Meanwhile, the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933 facilitated the growth of the CIO, and William Mitch's efforts to cultivate interracial unionism in Birmingham in the 1930s were largely successful. The chapter concludes by noting that DeBardeleben's alleged fascist ties are difficult to document and seem less significant than his anticommunist rhetoric and switch to the Republican Party, both of which provide an early glimpse of tactics recalcitrant white southerners would employ to prevent social and racial change in the post-World War II years.

Philadelphia's Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism Wobbly-Style

In the early twentieth century, several thousand Philadelphia longshoremen organized themselves into a powerful, durable, and effective labor union. These men, who proudly belonged to the Industrial Workers of the World, proved willing and able to employ the Wobblies’ direct action tactics to improve their lives. Perhaps even more impressive is that Local 8 was one of the most, perhaps the most, racially inclusive union of its era. Few institutions of any sort at that time in America could claim to be more committed to interracial, multiethnic unionism than Local 8. For ideological and pragmatic reasons, Local 8 stood for racial and ethnic integration on the waterfront. Uniting a diverse workforce was essential to the union's success. Indeed, the union collapsed when Local 8 was split along racial lines. This article looks at the rise and fall of the Progressive Era's most integrated union.