Past Winners of the Barbara Wertheimer Prize

To recognize serious study in labor and work history among undergraduate students, the New York Labor History Association awards the Barbara Wertheimer Prize of $250.00 for the best research paper written during a given academic year.

The winner for 2011, Neal Joseph Meyer, submitted this abstract of his paper, "'Yours for the Revolution,' Left-wing Organizers and the Committee for Industrial Organizations, 1920 - 1937." The paper was prepared at Harvard University under the direction of Lisa McGirr.

This thesis looks at the careers of two labor organizers and political radicals, Rose Pesotta and Powers Hapgood, and argues that their leftist politics played a central part in their success as national organizers for the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). Pesotta was an anarchist, a Russian immigrant, and a garment worker who organized for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Hapgood was a Harvard graduate turned coal miner, an organizer for the United Mine Workers, and an active member and organizer for the Socialist Party. In 1935, both Pesotta and Hapgood began a two year period of intense organizing work as national organizers for the CIO and its member unions, during which they became close friends and companions.

The first two chapters look at Pesotta and Hapgood's careers in turn and show that their radicalism preserved their commitment to organizing over a 10 year period of demobilization in the 1920s. When the Great Depression came and labor unrest began to mount, they were some of the few experienced members of the labor movement with organizing experience capable of leading this drive. Most importantly, their shared analysis that a class struggle existed in the United States between workers and capitalists committed them to organizing industrial and participatory unions, which directly led to their decision to work for the CIO.

The final chapter looks at their participation in the Flint Sit Down Strike of 1937. In Flint, a cast of radicals coming out of a national leftist community, all with prior friendships and similar understandings of where the labor movement needed to go, came together to lead the strike. Pesotta and Hapgood fit comfortably into this developed leftist milieu in Detroit and Flint, and without it and the organizers involved the sit down strike would never have been successful, potentially depriving the labor movement of its most important catalyst. The conclusion of this thesis argues that successful movements of labor require a radical philosophy and national community to educate, inspire, and connect labor organizers.
The winner for 2010, Rose Friedman, submitted this abstract of her paper, "The IWW and the Mesabi Miners, 1916-1917." The paper was prepared at Macalester College under the direction of Professor Peter Rachleff.

Using David Roediger's theory of "race management," which says that managers use race as a tool to prevent unionization in the workplace I discussed race and organizing on Minnesota's Iron Range. The range held a huge number of immigrant workers in the early 1900s, and the mining company pitted them against each other in hopes that a fractured workforce would not form a union. It didn't work, and with the help of the IWW, which was the only union willing to organize the lower working classes at the time, several strikes occurred. While the actions themselves were unsuccessful, many of the demands were met in the following years. I attributed much of the success to the IWW's use of race as an organizing tool, turning race management on its head. The "wobblies" urged the miners to use cultural institutions for organizing purposes. So Finnish opera houses became labor halls, centers of the strikes, and miners were able to come together for one cause.
2009, Brian Sarnacki, submitted this abstract of his paper, "A Not So Golden Oldie? Rethinking the Golden Age of Capitalism through the 1959 St. Louis Newspaper Guild Strike." The honors thesis was prepared at Notre Dame University under the direction of Professor Daniel Graff.

While many scholars, political commentators, and others have viewed the 1950s as the "golden age" of capitalism, in which unions and companies worked together rather peacefully to establish "Labor-management accord," the 1959 Newspaper Guild strike of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat suggests that the 1950s were more gilded than golden. During the strike, the Newspaper Guild fought for control of their future security by attempting to regulate their pensions and trying to keep their job security provisions as management fought for unhindered control over personnel decisions. While management pushed back against union gains, it was not a complete victory for either side. The union still had job protections and the management won the recognition of some of its authority. Although the union and company lobbied for the public's support, the public was reluctant to involve itself, instead urging a negotiated settlement.

This case study shows that while collective bargaining was a hard fought struggle, the public's expectation of an accord, combined with the postwar economic boom, gilded the labor conflicts of the time period. Although the economic boom permitted the gilding of the age, the St. Louis public's disinterest holds the key to the creation of the "golden age" image. The peaceful "golden age" founded upon the acceptance of unions, management, and collective bargaining that seems to have existed during the 1950s was merely a result in the public's growing disinterest in labor issues. Viewing the golden age of the 1950s as the gilded age that it really was, better frames the decline of the labor movement. The gilded nature of the 1950s was exposed when the economy soured after the postwar boom ended in the 1970s. While the public wondered what had happened to the peaceful "accord," workers were left to continue fighting with management.
2008: Genna Braverman, "Historical Struggles: The Evolution of Gender, Race, and Organizing at Yale-New Haven Hospital." The essay was written at Yale University, and the advisor was Jennifer Klein.

Using Yale-New Haven Hospital as a case study, this paper examines the continuities and shifts in service sector organizing over the past forty years. The paper is structured around two unionization drives at the hospital: the 1970-1973 campaign, which successfully unionized the hospital's food service workers, and the 1998-2008 effort, which unsuccessfully sought to organize the hospital's 1800 remaining un-unionized service personnel.

Relying on oral histories, court documents, newspaper articles, and union publications, this paper argues the significance of a discursive shift, which radically differentiates past and present organizing campaigns. The food services drive harnessed the anti-war, civil rights sentiments of the period, evoking and fostering a consciousness that overlooked the centrality of gender politics. Whereas the 1970s drive was underpinned by the discourse of civil rights understood as manhood rights, the most recent effort has grounded its vocabulary and strategy in the expansive concept of "community- based rights." Such a departure maps onto the realities of an altered labor landscape, a landscape in which manufacturing has given way to the service sector and women of color comprise an overwhelming majority of that workforce.

This study probes the intersections of race and gender hierarchies in the hospital, and explores the ways in which these intersections inform the contestation of institutional power structures. As a final point of analysis, this paper considers the importance of political climate to the success of unionization efforts, and examines the degree to which federal policy has impacted organizing capabilities at the hospital.

2006: Kevin Brown, "Defining 'Amicable Relations': Class Formation, Conflict and Political Economy in 1870s Pittsburgh", honors thesis, Bucknell University. The advisor was Professor John Enyeart.

2006: Michael Murphy, "Anthrax Strike: The 1976 Outbreak of Labor Militancy in the Panama Canal Zone", senior seminar essay, National Labor College, The advisor was Professor Robert Reynolds.

2005: Lori Flores for her senior thesis, "An Unladylike Strike Fashionably Clothed: Mexican American and Anglo Women Garment Workers Against Tex-Son, 1959-1963." Lori graduated in May 2005 from Yale University. Her advisors for this thesis were Stephen Pitti and Beverly Gage.

2004:Matthew Lee-Ashley for his senior thesis, "The 1903-1904 Coal Strike and the Origins of Corporate Hegemony in Southern Colorado." Matt graduated in May 2004 from Pomona College. His advisor for this thesis was Victor Silverman.

2003: Raphael Rajendra for his senior thesis "Hopeless Struggle." The essay was written at Columbia University, and Raphael's advisor was Eric Foner.