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Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950. By Rosemary Feurer. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. xxii, 320 pp. Cloth, $65.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03087-1. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 978-0-252-07319-9.)
Centered in St. Louis in the 1930s and 1940s, District 8 of the United Electrical Workers established a powerful presence not only in the local labor movement but in a much larger, complexly intertwined political economy encompassing a vital sector of manufacturing in the Midwest. This study by Rosemary Feurer situates this unique labor organization, led by an open Communist for most of its history, within a complex milieu of regional political, economic, biographical, and cultural history and influences. She demonstrates that the records of the Communist party (fond 515) can productively support a fine work of social history. Her book is a work of careful synthesis,...