Bridgeport's Socialist New Deal, 1915–36

Abstract

Astutely argued and copiously documented with archival, newspaper, and oral history sources, this exploration of the coming to power and early years of a socialist administration in Bridgeport, Connecticut, offers an outstanding example of the strength of wedding social and political history on a local level. In six carefully crafted chapters, Cecelia Bucki describes the early-twentieth-century economy of Bridgeport, its Democratic and Republican manufacturing elite, and the mechanisms they used to control the community's purse strings. She delves into the disruptive impact of World War I and the diverse ethnic communities that made up the city's working class and their evolving political loyalties, and she explores the importance of the 1928 Al Smith campaign in shifting ethnic and working-class voter loyalties to the Socialist party. Bucki documents the reemergence of labor activism, particularly in the metal trades, the building trades, and the garment industry in the late 1920s and early depression years— in protests over unemployed relief, use of nonunion contractors, and sweatshops. Her meticulous examination of the politics of taxes, budgets, and city services is stunning; it suggests the value of focusing on fiscal politics fully to understand working-class political struggles in the 1920s and 1930s.