Media and Culture in the U.S. Jewish Labor Movement

Sweating for Democracy in the Interwar Era

Brian Dolber

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9783319435473
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319435480
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

This book explores the Jewish Left's innovative strategies in maintaining newspapers, radio stations, and educational activities during a moment of crisis in global democracy. In the wake of the First World War, as immigrant workers and radical organizations came under attack, leaders within largely Jewish unions and political parties determined to keep their tradition of social unionism alive. By adapting to an emerging media environment dependent on advertising, turn-of-the-century Yiddish socialism morphed into a new political identity compatible with American liberalism and an expanding consumer society. Through this process, the Jewish working class secured a place within the New Deal coalition they helped to produce. Using a wide array of archival sources, Brian Dolber demonstrates the importance of cultural activity in movement politics, and the need for thoughtful debate about how to structure alternative media in moments of political, economic, and technological change.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: “Digging in the Dark”: The Forward’s Advertising Strategy in the 1920s
• Chapter 3: “Cutting the Pathway in the Wilderness of Confusion”: Worker Education and the Garment Unions, 1919–1932
• Chapter 4: Moving Forward on the Air: The Birth of WEVD and the Rise of Commercial Broadcasting
• Chapter 5: “A Song of Social Significance”: Jewish Labor, Mass Culture, and the New Deal
• Chapter 6: “The Most Effective Weapon”: Consumer Activism and the Jewish Labor Committee’s Anti-Nazi Boycott
• Chapter 7: A “Friendly Negotiation”: Jewish Labor, the Newspaper Guild, and the Limits of the New Deal
• Chapter 8: Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index