The CIO, 1935-1955 | Robert H. Zieger | University of North Carolina Press

View Inside

504 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 32 illus.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4630-8
Published: February 1997
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6870-1
Published: November 2000
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6644-3
Published: November 2000

Buy this Book

Paperback $55.00
E-Book $29.99

Barnes and Noble Ebooks Apple iBookstore Google eBookstore Amazon Kindle

To purchase online via an independent bookstore, visit Bookshop.org

Awards & distinctions

1996 Philip Taft Labor History Award

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) encompassed the largest sustained surge of worker organization in American history. Robert Zieger charts the rise of this industrial union movement, from the founding of the CIO by John L. Lewis in 1935 to its merger under Walter Reuther with the American Federation of Labor in 1955. Exploring themes of race and gender, Zieger combines the institutional history of the CIO with vivid depictions of working-class life in this critical period. Zieger details the ideological conflicts that racked the CIO even as its leaders strove to establish a labor presence at the heart of the U.S. economic system. Stressing the efforts of industrial unionists such as Sidney Hillman and Philip Murray to forge potent instruments of political action, he assesses the CIO's vital role in shaping the postwar political and international order. Zieger's analysis also contributes to current debates over labor law reform, the collective bargaining system, and the role of organized labor in a changing economy.

About the Author

Robert H. Zieger, professor of history at the University of Florida, is author of Rebuilding the Pulp and Paper Workers' Union and American Workers, American Unions
For more information about Robert H. Zieger, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Will be standard reading for anyone interested in this crucial period of American labor history."--American Historical Review

"An enormously useful history of the tumultuous career of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, one bound to be treated as the definitive account for years to come."--Business History Review

"Extensively researched, solidly argued, and well-written. . . . A major achievement by a distinguished scholar and a welcome addition to the literature."--Journal of American History

"Can be relied upon as the most authoritative factual overview and the most detailed interpretive reading of the CIO's history we have."--Journal of Southern History

"An excellent history of an important American institution. Zieger does a good job of setting the context in which the union developed and of stressing the difficulties inherent in organizing workers in capitalist firms. His work deserves attention from labor historians of all stripes."--Contemporary Sociology

"Sets a new standard for the study of the mid-twentieth-century labor movement . . . . Manages to strike that most elusive of balances between history from above and below. . . . A major accomplishment."--Reviews in American History

Quick Links

Permissions Information

Subsidiary Rights Information

Media Inquiries

Related Subjects

Labor History

Related Books