“This book is as interesting as the title promises. It is an excellent little volume, succinct and well-researched. The main thesis of the book is compellingly laid out, bringing readers easily to share the author's contention that union-busting today is much the same as it was in 1880.”
Labor Studies Journal Online
“Few people, even in the labor movement, know the tremendous investment and effort put into unionbusting over the past century. The book vividly demonstrates the need for labor history as an integral part of labor education and a stimulus to activism.”
Labor Studies Journal Online
“This work will become the convenient handbook for the distasteful but necessary look at the rearguard tactics that still too often shape American labor-management relations.”
Scott Molloy, Labor Research Center, University of Rhode Island
From the beginning of the Industrial Age and continuing into the twenty-first century, companies faced with militant workers and organizers have often turned to agencies that specialized in ending strikes and breaking unions. Although their secretive nature has made it difficult to fully explore the history of this industry, From Blackjacks to Briefcases does just that.
By digging through subpoenaed documents of strike-bound companies, their mercenaries, and the testimony of executive officers and rank-and-file strikebreakers, Robert Smith examines the inner workings of the antiunion industry. In a clear and lively style, he brings to life the violent armed guards employed on the picket line or in the coal camps; the ruffians who filled the armies marshaled by the “King of the Strikebreakers,” Pearl Bergoff; the labor spies who wrecked countless unions; and, after the Wagner Act, those who manipulated national labor law to serve their clients.
In From Blackjacks to Briefcases, Smith follows the history of this ongoing struggle and tells a compelling story that parallels the history of the United States over the last century and a half.
Robert Michael Smith is the author of a number of articles on labor relations and the progressive movement. He is a professor of history at Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio. More info →
Retail price:
$18.95 ·
Save 20% ($15.16)
US and Canada only
Availability and price vary according to vendor.
Share 
Permission to reprint
Permission
to photocopy or include in a course pack
via Copyright Clearance
Center
Paperback
978-0-8214-1466-8
Retail price: $18.95,
S.
Release date: May 2003
192 pages
·
5½ × 8½ in.
Rights: World
Hardcover
978-0-8214-1465-1
Out-of-print
Electronic
978-0-8214-4121-3
Release date: May 2003
192 pages
Rights: World
The Center of a Great Empire
The Ohio Country in the Early Republic
Edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton and Stuart D. Hobbs
The people who lived in what became the seventeenth state in the American Union in 1803 were not only at the center of a great empire, they were at the center of the most important historical developments in the revolutionary Atlantic World.
History | United States | Revolutionary Period (1775-1800) · American History, Midwest · Ohio and Regional
For the Prevention of Cruelty
The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States
By Diane L. Beers
Animal rights. Those two words conjure diverse but powerful images and reactions. Some nod in agreement, while others roll their eyes in contempt. Most people fall somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, between endorsement and rejection, as they struggle with the profound moral, philosophical, and legal questions provoked by the debate. Today, thousands of organizations lobby, agitate, and educate the public on issues concerning the rights and treatment of nonhumans.For
Every Factory a Fortress
The French Labor Movement in the Age of Ford and Hitler
By Michael Torigian
French trade unions played a historical role in the 1930s quite unlike that of any other labor movement. Against a backdrop of social unrest, parliamentary crisis, and impending world war, industrial unionists in the great metal-fabricating plants of the Paris Region carried out a series of street mobilizations, factory occupations, and general strikes that were virtually unique in Western history.The
History · World and Comparative History · European History · France · Western Europe · Europe · History | Modern | 20th Century · Labor History
Standing Our Ground
Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal
By Joyce M. Barry
Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal examines women’s efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Mountaintop removal coal mining, which involves demolishing the tops of hills and mountains to provide access to coal seams, is one of the most significant environmental threats in Appalachia, where it is most commonly practiced.The
Social Science | Regional Studies · Women’s Studies · Environmental Policy · Appalachia · Ohio and Regional
