Purchasing Power
Consumer Organizing, Gender, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919–1929

This book analyses consumer organising tactics and the decline of the Seattle labour movement in the 1920s.

Dana Frank (Author)

9780521383677, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 February 1994

376 pages, 16 b/w illus.
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.7 kg

"...an engaging and nuanced account of a neglected chapter of labor history....[Frank's] thoughtful analysis of how gender and race interacted with class in this movement should make the book of much interest to sociologists of labor and social movements." Robert V. Robinson, Contemporary Sociology

Purchasing Power analyses consumer organising tactics and the decline of the Seattle labour movement in the 1920s. The book examines the transformation of the movement after the famous Seattle General Strike of 1919 by showing that workers organised not only at the point of production, but through politicised consumption as well, employing boycotts, cooperatives, labor-owned businesses, and union label promotion. It pays special attention to the gender dynamics of labor's consumer campaigns, as trade union men sought to persuade their wives to 'shop union', and to the racial dynamics of campaigns organised by white workers against Seattle's Japanese-American businesses.

Part I. Vision: 1. Solidarity
2. Cooperatives
3. Labor Capitalism
Part II. Revision: 4. Counterattack
5. Boycotts
6. Depression
7. Accommodations
Part III. Contraction: 8. Harmony
9. Label Unionism
Conclusion
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]