Early Labor Movement Strike Violence, the Press, and the Upton Sinclair Hypothesis
In: Journal of Labor and SocietyAbstract
During the labor movement’s formative years, Upton Sinclair was among the most vehement critics of the press for, as he claimed, a wide variety of “capitalist corruptions.” The authors examine one of Sinclair’s central charges in his The Brass Check, the first major book-length criticism of the U.S. corporate press: When strikers are violent, they get reported on the wire services; when they are not violent, they are ignored by the wires and thus the papers. This press selection process serves to create in public consciousness a strong association between strikes and violence. Focusing on coverage by the New York Sun and New York Times for fourteen major strikes spanning the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, evidence suggests that Sinclair’s claim was, with some qualification, generally correct. The authors discuss implications of negative press as “soft repression” during the formative years of the labor movement and prior to journalism’s major moves at professionalization.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Anderson, B. Imagined communities (London: Verso Press, 1991).
-
Avery, D. “Images of violence in labor jurisprudence: The regulation of picketing and boycotts (1894–1921).” Buffalo Law Review 37 (1) (1988), 1–117.
-
Baldasty, G.J. (1993). “The rise of news as a commodity: Business imperatives and the press in the nineteenth century.” In Ruthless criticism: News perspectives in U.S. communication history, eds. W.S. Solomon and R.W. McChesney (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 98–121.
-
Banerjee, T. and Case, B.. “The leverage of protest: Market, media, and reputational disruption in social movement success.” Sociological Forum 35 (1) (2020), 95–125.
-
Beckert, S. The monied metropolis: New York and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
-
Bodenhamer, D.J. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994).
-
Brecher, J. Strike! (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, (1997).
-
Brody, D. Labor in crisis: The steel strike of 1919 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1965).
-
Bruno, R. “Evidence of bias in the Chicago Tribune coverage of organized labor: A Quantitative study from 1991 to 2001.” Labor Studies Journal 34 (3) (2009), 385–407.
-
Case, T.A. The great southwest railroad strike and free labor (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2010).
-
Clemens, E.S. “Toward a historicized sociology: Theorizing events, processes, and emergence.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007), 527–549.
-
Coley, J.S. “Narrative and frame alignment in social movements: Labor problem novels and the 1929 Gastonia strike.” Social Movement Studies 14 (1) (2015), 58–74.
-
Corbin, D.A. Life, work, and rebellion in the coal fields: Southern West Virginia miners, 1880–1922 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1981).
-
Cotkin, G.B. “Strikebreakers, evictions and violence: Industrial conflict in the Hocking Valley, 1884–1885.” Ohio History 87 (2) (1978), 140–150.
-
Currarino, R. (2011). The labor question in America: Economic democracy in the Gilded Age (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011).
-
Davenport, C. Media bias, perspectives, and state repression (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
-
Dubofsky, M. We shall be all: A history of the Industrial Workers of the World, 2nd edn. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
-
Dulles, F.R. and Dubofsky, M.. Labor in America, 5th edn. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1993).
-
Ferree, M.M. “Soft repression: Ridicule, stigma, and silencing in gender-based movements.” In Repression and mobilization, eds. C. Davenport, H. Johnston and C. Muller (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 138–155.
-
Fink, G.M. The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Strike of 1914–1915: Espionage, labor conflict, and new south industrial relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).
-
Flynn, F.J. “No news is good news: The relationship between media attention and strike duration.” Industrial Relations 39 (1) (2000), 139–160.
-
Foner, P.S. Organized labor and the black worker, 1619–1981 (New York, NY: International Publishers (1981).
-
Frank, D. Purchasing power: Consumer organizing, gender, and the Seattle labor movement, 1919–1929 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
-
Gitlin, T. The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980).
-
Goldberg, D.J. “Twentieth century textile strikes.” In The encyclopedia of strikes in American history, eds. A. Brenner, B. Day and I. Ness (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), 330–341.
-
Goldstein, R.J. Political repression in modern America: From 1870 to the present (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1978).
-
Goldstein, R.J. “Political repression of the American labor movement during its formative years—a comparative perspective [Symposium].” Labor History 51 (2) (2010), 271–293.
-
Gould, W.B. Agenda for reform: The future of employment relationships and the law (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1993).
-
Gramsci, A. (Selections from cultural writings (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 1913–1935/2012).
-
Green, J.R. The devil is here in these hills: West Virginia’s coal miners and their battle For freedom (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015).
-
Grenier, J. “Upton Sinclair and the press: The Brass Check reconsidered.” Journalism Quarterly 49 (1972), 427–436.
-
Griffin, L.J., Wallace, M.E. and Rubin, B.A.. “Capitalist resistance to the organization of labor before the New Deal: Why? how? success?” American Sociological Review 51 (2) (1986), 147–167.
-
Hinshaw, J. Steel and steelworkers: Race and class struggle in twentieth century Pittsburgh (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002).
-
Hulden, V. “Employer organizations’ influence on the Progressive-Era press.” Journalism History 38 (1) (2012), 43–53.
-
Hurd, J. “Charles Ransom Miller’ 72.” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine December (1953), 23–26.
-
Isaac, L.W. “To counter ‘the very devil’ and more: The making of independent capitalist militia in gilded age America.” American Journal of Sociology 108 (2) (2002), 353–405.
-
Isaac, L.W. “Counterframes and allegories of evil: Characterizations of labor by gilded age elites.” Work and Occupations 35 (4) (2008), 388–421.
-
Isaac, L.W. “Movements, aesthetics, and markets in literary change: Making the American labor problem novel.” American Sociological Review 74 (6) (2009), 938–965.
-
Isaac, L.W., Coley, J.S., Mai, Q.D. and Jacobs, A.W.. “Striking news: Discursive power of the press as capitalist resource in Gilded Age strikes.” American Journal of Sociology 127 (5) (2022), 1602–1663.
-
Jämte, J. and R. Ellefsen. “The consequences of soft repression.” Mobilization 25 (3) (2020), 383–404.
-
Kimeldorf, H. “Worker replacement costs and unionization: Origins of the U.S. labor movement.” American Sociological Review 78 (6) (2013), 1033–1062.
-
Lens, S. The labor wars (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1974).
-
Leonard, H.B. “Ethnic cleavage and industrial conflict in late 19th century America: The Cleveland rolling mill company strikes of 1882 and 1885.” Labor History 20 (1979): 524–548.
-
Lipold, P. and Isaac, L.W.. “Striking deaths: Lethal contestation and the ‘exceptional’ character of the American labor movement, 1870–1970.” International Review of Social History 54 (2) (2009), 167–205.
-
Loomis, E. A history of America in ten strikes (New York, NY: The New Press, 2018).
-
Mai, Q.D. “All the labor problems fit to print: The New York Times and the cultural production of the U.S. ‘labor problem,’ 1870–1932.’ Labor History 57 (2) (2016), 141–169.
-
Martin, C.R. “ups strike coverage and the future of labor in corporate news.” In Class and news, ed. D. Heider (New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 262–280.
-
Martin, C.R. “The news media and strikes.” In The encyclopedia of strikes in America, eds. A. Brenner, B. Day and I. Ness (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), 44–51.
-
McCammon, H.J. “Government by injunction: The U.S. judiciary and strike action in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” Work and Occupations 20 (2) (1993), 174–204.
-
McChesney, R.W. “Journalism, democracy, and class struggle.” Monthly Review 52 (6) (2000), 1–15.
-
McChesney, R.W. and Scott, B.. “Introduction to the reprint of The Brass Check.” In The Brass Check, ed. U. Sinclair (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003) ix–xxxiii.
-
Mears, W.R. (2007). “A brief history of ap.” In Breaking news: How the Associated Press has covered war, peace, and everything else (Hudson, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), 402–413.
-
Michel, J.B., Shen, Y.K., A. Presser Aiden, A. Veres, Gray, M.K., Google Books Team, Pickett, J.P., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P., Orwant, J., Pinker, S., Nowak, M.A. and Lieberman Aiden., E. “Quantitative analyses of culture using millions of digitized books.” Science 331 (6014) (2010), 176–182.
-
Montgomery, D. “Strikes in nineteenth century America.” Social Science History 4 (1) (1980), 81–104.
-
Nelson, L.K., Burk, D., Knudson, M. and McCall, L.. “The future of coding: A comparison of hand-coding and three types of computer-assisted text analysis methods.” Sociological Methods & Research 50 (1) (2018), 202–237.
-
Nord, D.P. Communities of journalism: A history of American newspapers and their readers (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015).
-
Norwood, S.H. Strike-breaking and intimidation: Mercenaries and masculinity in twentieth century America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
-
Parenti, M. Inventing reality: The politics of the mass media (New York, NY: St. Martin’s, 1986).
-
Pearson, C. Reform or repression: Organizing America’s anti-union movement (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
-
Pearson, C. “The ‘new solution:’ Anti-labour kidnapping, D.B. McKay, and the legacy of the Second Seminole War.” In The violence of work, eds. J. Milloy and J. Sangster (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2021), 62–87.
-
Phillips-Fein, K. “Corporate strike strategy.” In The encyclopedia of strikes in America, eds. A. Brenner, B. Day, and I. Ness (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), 66–71.
-
Puette, W.J. Through jaundiced eyes: How the media view organized labor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University ilr Press, 1992).
-
Richards, L. Union-free America: Workers and anti-union culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
-
Richardson, H.C. The death of reconstruction: Race, labor, and politics in the post-civil war north, 1865–1901 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
-
Rondinone, T. The great industrial war: Framing class conflict in the media, 1865–1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010).
-
Rogers, B. “The street car war at Indianapolis. International Socialist Review 14 (1913), 340–342.
-
Rosenblum, J.D. Copper crucible (Ithaca, NY: ilr (Cornell) Press, 1995).
-
Rössel, J. “Industrial structure, union strategy, and strike activity in American bituminous coal mining, 1881–1894.” Social Science History 26 (1) (2002) 1–32.
-
Schudson, M. The sociology of news, 2nd edn. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011).
-
Schwarzlose, R.A. The nation’s newsbrokers, volume 1: The formative years, from pretelegraphy to 1865 (Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989).
-
Schwarzlose, R.A. The nation’s newsbrokers, volume 2: The rush to institution, from 1865 to 1920 (Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990).
-
Serrin, W. Homestead: The glory and tragedy of an American steel town (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1993).
-
Sinclair, U. The brass check: A study of American journalism; Evidence and reasons behind the media’s corruption (Hawthorne, CA: Adansonia Publishing, 1919).
-
Steele, J.E. (1993). The Sun shines for all: Journalism and the ideology in the life of Charles A. Dana (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993).
-
Taft, P. and Ross, P. “American labor violence: Its causes, character, and outcome.” In Violence in America, eds. H. Graham and T. Gurr (Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 281–395.
-
Taussig, F.W. “The south-western strike of 1886.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 1 (2) (1887), 184–222.
-
Thompson, N.F. (1901). Report of the U.S. industrial commission on the relations and conditions of capital and labor employed in manufactures and general business, including testimony so far as taken, November 1, and digest of testimony 7 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901).
-
Tomlins, C.L. The state and the unions: Labor relations, law, and the organized labor movement in America, 1880–1960 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
-
Tomlins, C.L. and King, A.J., eds. Labor law in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
-
Turner, H.B. When giants ruled: The story of Park Row, New York’s great newspaper Street (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 1999).
-
Waldrep, C. The many faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal violence and punishment in America (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
-
Wallace, M., Rubin, B.A. and B. Smith. “American labor law: Its impact on working-class militancy, 1901–1980.” Social Science History 12 (1) (1988), 1–29.
-
Watts, S. (1991). Order against chaos: Business culture and labor ideology in America, 1880–1915 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991).
-
White, A.A. “The crime of staging an effective strike and the enduring role of criminal law in modern labor relations.” Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 11 (1) (2008), 23–44.
-
Wilentz, S. “The rise of the American working class, 1776–1877.” In Perspectives on American labor history, eds. J.C. Moddy and A. Kessler-Harris (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1989), 83–151.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 159 | 159 | 101 |
| Full Text Views | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Early Labor Movement Strike Violence, the Press, and the Upton Sinclair Hypothesis
In: Journal of Labor and SocietyAbstract
During the labor movement’s formative years, Upton Sinclair was among the most vehement critics of the press for, as he claimed, a wide variety of “capitalist corruptions.” The authors examine one of Sinclair’s central charges in his The Brass Check, the first major book-length criticism of the U.S. corporate press: When strikers are violent, they get reported on the wire services; when they are not violent, they are ignored by the wires and thus the papers. This press selection process serves to create in public consciousness a strong association between strikes and violence. Focusing on coverage by the New York Sun and New York Times for fourteen major strikes spanning the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, evidence suggests that Sinclair’s claim was, with some qualification, generally correct. The authors discuss implications of negative press as “soft repression” during the formative years of the labor movement and prior to journalism’s major moves at professionalization.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 159 | 159 | 101 |
| Full Text Views | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 3 | 3 | 3 |