CLASSAND GENDER POLITICS IN PROGRESSIVE-ERA SEATTLE by John C. Putman University ofNevada Press, Reno and Las Vegas, 2008. Notes, bibliography, index. 312pages. $39.95 cloth. JohnPutman has written a fine treatment of thepolitics of early twentieth-centurySeattle. He makes some important contributions to our understanding ofWashington's metropo lis,and at the same time helps us thinkmore productively about Progressivism generally. Putman, above all, seeks to explain thedistinc tiveness, power, and fate of Progressivism in Seattle. He makes a persuasive argument that class and genderwere central to explainingwhy the city's reform impulse waxed and waned. Scholars have long seen Seattle? at least before itbecame the homeland ofMicrosoft and Starbucks? as the West Coast's premier working-class city, with a powerful union pres ence and awhole host of colorful labor radicals. Yet, Putman smartlyextends thisbasic insight by arguing thatwe cannot explain municipal politics by simplydeclaring thecityproletarian. Instead, labor's power in many ways depended on cross-class alliances with members of the middle class? particularly female political activists. This is an innovative and intriguingargu ment. First, Putman usefully recognizes that we cannot just equate "working class" with radicalism and "middle class" with conserva tism. Politics within both classes was varied, changing, and always dependent on the pull of particular events.Many labor leaders and female workers, for example, supported the "middle-class" issue of prohibition, even if male workerswere overwhelmingly opposed to thebanning of alcohol. Second, insofaras the citizens in theworking class and middle class came together politically, the primary bridge builders were women. In the late nineteenth century, for instance, unionists, on their own, were not able to garner political support for theirorganization drives or for worker-friendly legislation.Yet,when theyallied with woman suffragists,who had also not been able to successfullypush their agenda, working-class power significantly increased. In turn,union support for women's righttovote helped push that issue across the electoral finish line, mak ing Seattle the largestcity in thenation, at the time, to gain woman suffrage. From 1910through roughly the entryof the United States into World War I in 1917, this cross-class coalition held significant power in Seattle.Workers benefitted from a friendly municipal government, women's voices became more andmore prominent inthepublic sphere, and reformers from both classes and sexes supported a crusade against vice. Still, this coalition was ever-fragile. When the economy slumped and workers became more radical, elites counterattacked with an anti-union and anti-red crusade of their own that effectively split theworking class and the middle class. While Putman is clearly on the side of the unionists and feministshere, he skillfully narrates the decline, aswell as the rise, of his Progressives.This isnot a studyofheroic hopes dashed, but ratherone of somber hope that we might again see the revival of a labor-feminist alliance. (The current-day political meanings of thebook, however, are unfortunately rather muted.) Naturally, Putman could have improved his book in severalways.His declaration thatthis is a book about "the West" runs into thecommon problem that there is reallyno one historical "West" that scholars can usefully generalize about. Putman shows thatSeattleitesdid occa sionally invoke their status as westerners, but even thatdid not seem tohave happened all that much. And such bold regionalist statements from the introduction as "there is no better time, then,to search fortheorigins of regional identityin thePacificNorthwest than thedawn of the twentieth century" receive almost no sup port in theheart of the text (p. 4). 626 OHQ vol. 109, no. 4 In termsof thewriting,much of thebook tends toward somewhat dry narration of political conflicts rather than attempting to draw rivetingpersonal portraits or continually advancing interpretive arguments. And thebook could have used amuch more robust conclu sion,placing Putman's findings about Seattle in conversationwith other scholarlywork about theworkings of Progressivism. That said, Put man's book isa valuable contribution that will definitely interestnot only scholars but also many lay-readersof PacificNorthwest history. Robert D. Johnston University at Illinois at Chicago Craftsman style,and survivingArts and Crafts objects ina variety ofmaterials, Kreisman and Mason masterfully convey the essence of the movement and its talented practitioners in many artisticfields. To establish a context for the advent of theArts and Craftsmovement...