"We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead-NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim's classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city's labor movement. While Seattle's strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city's reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

Fifty years ago, John Steinbeck's now classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, captured the epic story of an Oklahoma farm family driven west to California by dust storms, drought, and economic hardship. It was a story that generations of Americans have also come to know through Dorothea Lange's unforgettable photos of migrant families struggling to make a living in Depression-torn California. Now in James N. Gregory's pathbreaking American Exodus, there is at last an historical study that moves beyond the fiction of the 1930s to uncover the full meaning of these events.
American Exodus takes us back to the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the war boom influx of the 1940s to explore the experiences of the more than one million Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Missourians who sought opportunities in California. Gregory reaches into the migrants' lives to reveal not only their economic trials but also their impact on California's culture and society. He traces the development of an "Okie subculture" that over the years has grown into an essential element in California's cultural landscape.
Gregory vividly depicts how Southwesterners brought with them on their journey west an allegiance to evangelical Protestantism, "plain-folk American" values, and a love of country music. These values gave Okies an expanding cultural presence their new home. In their neighborhoods, often called "Little Oklahomas," they created a community of churches and saloons, of church-goers and good-old-boys, mixing stern-minded religious thinking with hard-drinking irreverence. Today, Baptist and Pentecostal churches abound in this region, and from Gene Autry, "Oklahoma's singing cowboy," to Woody Guthrie, Bob Wills, and Merle Haggard, the special concerns of Southwesterners have long dominated the country music industry in California. The legacy of the Dust Bowl migration can also be measured in political terms. Throughout California and especially in the San Joaquin Valley Okies have implanted their own brand of populist conservatism.
The consequences reach far beyond California. The Dust Bowl migration was part of a larger heartland diaspora that has sent millions of Southerners and rural Midwesterners to the nation's northern and western industrial perimeter. American Exodus is the first book to examine the cultural implications of that massive 20th-century population shift. In this rich account of the experiences and impact of these migrant heartlanders, Gregory fills an important gap in recent American social history.

Fifty years ago, John Steinbeck's now classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, captured the epic story of an Oklahoma farm family driven west to California by dust storms, drought, and economic hardship. It was a story that generations of Americans have also come to know through Dorothea Lange's unforgettable photos of migrant families struggling to make a living in Depression-torn California. Now in James N. Gregory's pathbreaking American Exodus, there is at last an historical study that moves beyond the fiction and the photographs to uncover the full meaning of these events.

American Exodus takes us back to the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the war boom influx of the 1940s to explore the experiences of the more than one million Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Missourians who sought opportunities in California. Gregory reaches into the migrants' lives to reveal not only their economic trials but also their impact on California's culture and society. He traces the development of an "Okie subculture" that over the years has grown into an essential element in California's cultural landscape.

The consequences, however, reach far beyond California. The Dust Bowl migration was part of a larger heartland diaspora that has sent millions of Southerners and rural Midwesterners to the nation's northern and western industrial perimeter. American Exodus is the first book to examine the cultural implications of that massive 20th-century population shift. In this rich account of the experiences and impact of these migrant heartlanders, Gregory fills an important gap in recent American social history.

"We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead-NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim's classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city's labor movement. While Seattle's strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city's reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

Talks about the southern exodus and its impact on American life. Between 1900 and the 1970s, twenty million southerners migrated north and west. Weaving together for the first time the histories of black and white migrants, James N. Gregory traces their paths and experiences in a comprehensive new study that demonstrates how this regional diaspora reshaped America by ""southernizing"" communities and transforming important cultural and political institutions. Challenging the image of the migrants as helpless and poor, Gregory shows how both black and white southerners used their new surroundings to become agents of change. Combining personal stories with cultural, political, and demographic analysis, he argues that the migrants helped create both the modern civil rights movement and modern conservatism. They spurred changes in American religion, notably modern evangelical Protestantism, and in popular culture, including the development of blues, jazz, and country music. In a sweeping account that pioneers new understandings of the impact of mass migrations, Gregory recasts the history of twentieth-century America. He demonstrates that the southern diaspora was crucial to transformations in the relationship between American regions, in the politics of race and class, and in the roles of religion, the media, and culture.

Here, reprinted for the first time since its original publication, is muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair's lively, caustic account of the 1934 election campaign that turned California upside down and almost won him the governor's mansion.
Using his "End Poverty in California" movement (more commonly called EPIC) as a springboard, Sinclair ran for governor as a Democrat, equipped with a bold plan to end the Depression in California by taking over idle land and factories and turning them into cooperative ventures for the unemployed. To his surprise, thousands rallied to the idea, converting what he had assumed would be another of his utopian schemes into a mass political movement of extraordinary dimensions. With a loosely knit organization of hundreds of local EPIC clubs, Sinclair overwhelmed the moderate Democratic opposition to capture the primary election. When it came to the general election, however, his opposition employed highly effective campaign tactics: overwhelming media hostility, vicious red-baiting and voter intimidation, high-priced dirty tricks. The result was a resounding defeat in November.
"I, Candidate" tells the story of Sinclair's campaign while also capturing the turbulent political mood of the 1930s. Employing his trademark muckraking style, Sinclair exposes the conspiracies of power that ensured big-money control over the media and other powerful institutions.