Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. By Peter Cole. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. xii, 227 pp. $40.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03186-1.)

Abstract

The Industrial Workers of the World (iww) continues to fascinate labor historians. Standing between the Knights of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Wobblies kept the idea of “one big union” alive during the labor repression of World War I and the 1920s. Most histories of the iww naturally focus on the philosophy and ideology of the national union and its leaders. Peter Cole's richly detailed book provides a glimpse at a topic too often ignored, the local iww. Through superb use of primary sources, Cole unpacks the story of Local 8, a union of Philadelphia's dock workers. Cole tries “to rescue local 8 from historical obscurity” (p. 3). Local 8, to be fair, has been previously studied by the sociologist Howard Kimeldorf. Cole's focus, however, is on understanding Local 8 as “arguably the most powerful mixed-race union of its era” (p. 4). Local 8 united workers separated by race. Cole joins historians such as Roger Horowitz who seek to show unions that defied racial norms against enormous obstacles.