During the first half of the twentieth century, many young
intellectuals and reformers sympathized with the aspirations of
working people and supported the struggles of the labor movement.
Powers Hapgood (1899-1949) was one of the most colorful and
recognizable symbols of this crucial historical relationship. A
Harvard graduate and the scion of a famous Progressive-Era family,
Hapgood chose to devote his life to the working class. His
fascinating political career, marked by a staunch commitment to
workers' rights and civil liberties, also included important roles
in the Socialist Party and the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO). Robert Bussel's book is the first full-length biography of
this prominent American Socialist, labor organizer, and social
crusader.
Hapgood participated in some of the most stirring historical
events of his time--an epic coal miners' strike in Western
Pennsylvania, an insurgent attempt to oust John L. Lewis as
president of the United Mine Workers of America, the defense of
Niccolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and the electrifying
victories of sit-down strikers in Akron, Ohio, and Flint, Michigan.
In the latter stages of his career, he took unpopular stands on
issues of racial justice, civil liberties, and union democracy that
foreshadowed the fault lines along which the post-World War II
labor movement would founder. Recording and reflecting upon these
experiences in journals he kept throughout his life, Hapgood left
behind an unusually rich chronicle of the American working class,
the labor movement, and the practice of radical politics.
Hapgood's career illustrates important developments in the
evolution of liberalism and radicalism, the industrial union
movement, and the relationship between the middle and working
classes in twentieth-century America. At a time when the American
labor movement is attempting to recruit young people, forge a
rapprochement with liberals, and reclaim its role as a voice for
American workers, the appearance of a Hapgood biography is
timely.
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