Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism
Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism, by Shelton Stromquist (Brooklyn: Verso Books, 2023)
Back in the early 1900s in Milwaukee and some 180 cities in the world, socialism was not thought of as something subversive and dangerous. Rather, socialism was embraced by working people as a way to a better life.
Shelton Stromquist, emeritus professor of history at the University of Iowa and among the founders of the Wisconsin Labor History Society, has written a book, “Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism,” in which he claims that socialism was responsible for building city and county governments that were less corrupt, safer, healthier and livable.
He placed Milwaukee among some world class cities like Vienna, Austria; Christchurch, New Zealand; Stuttgart, Germany; Malmo, Sweden, and Hamilton, Ontario, where socialist governments led to progress for the citizens, particularly, working class families. All these changes resulted largely from the working class struggles that occurred throughout the world from the late 1870s to the year 1900. Specifically, he mentions the worker solidarity that was displayed in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, a strike that began in a Maryland railroad yard and soon spread across the U. S., and the Eight-Hour-Day marches of 1886, that involved the Haymarket incident in Chicago.
Though Stromquist doesn’t mention them in his book, several mass worker actions occurred in Wisconsin as part of the growth of class sentiment that favored socialism, namely the Bay View Massacre of 1886 (occurring as part of the Eight-Hour-Day movement of that year) and the Oshkosh Woodworkers Strike of 1898.
Milwaukee’s turn to socialism didn’t occur until 1910, with the election of Emil Seidel as mayor. As Stromquist writes: “Milwaukee’s Social Democratic Party in April 1910 stunned the nation and the world by electing a mayor, 21 of 36 aldermen, and 11 of 16 county supervisors. Also impressive were the election of Victor Berger to Congress and 13 socialists to the state legislature the following November.”
Likely, Stromquist said the support of the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council (FTC), the strong AF of L affiliate, was critical to the Social Democratic Party’s victories.
The socialists moved quickly, establishing municipal ownership of streetcar service, municipal baths, a public garbage disposal plant, markets and cold-storage warehouses, a municipal ice plant, free medical dispensaries and hospitals, a wide presence of public parks and swimming pools, free textbooks and the opening of schools at night as community centers. Many of these features continued for most of the 20th Century, including the municipal baths that were called natatoriums and the municipal hospitals. The parks, swimming pools and garbage disposal services are with us to the current day. While the Socialists were voted out of office in 1912, losing to a fusion ticket that linked the Republican and Democratic Parties, they returned in 1916, and held the mayor’s office for a total of 38 years between 1910 and 1960.
Milwaukee’s experience was typical of most of the socialist-run cities throughout the world, Stromquist writes, in that the reforms these progressive governments created would last and build a solid foundation for good governance.
In a book talk presentation at a Milwaukee bookstore, Stromquist noted that the legacy of socialist governments is that cities are “now habitable.” He said the importance of socialist rule has been forgotten in the building of infrastructure of cities. The practices developed by socialists in Milwaukee and other similar cities were often copied by cities elsewhere, proving how widespread the reforms were.
A leader of the reforms was Milwaukee’s Berger, who adhered to a cautious approach to reforms; he was a leader of the “constructivist” strategy to build socialism as opposed to a more radical, revolutionary approach. Yet, Milwaukee’s success in reforms would certainly justify the more centrist approach to change. Recently, Berger’s reputation has taken a dive, largely because he downplayed the importance of both women’s suffrage and racial justice, claiming that the class struggle should be primary.
Stromquist’s book is a massive 867 pages, and the Milwaukee experience is but a small portion of the book, albeit a critically important part. Furthermore, his research fills a hole in research showing how vital socialism was to the building of clean, safe, healthy and livable cities, not only in the U. S., but worldwide.
Reviewed by Ken Germanson, president emeritus of the Wisconsin Labor History Society. We thank the Society for permission to reprint this review.