Citadel of Labor

Abstract

This chapter surveys the role of Civil War memory in the construction of labor patriotism in the American Federation of Labor. Mirroring its anti-revolutionary leadership, notably Samuel Gompers, the AFL moved increasingly away from labor militancy and electoral strategy. The rise of national blue-gray reconciliation paralleled the Federation’s maturation, as well as the establishment of Jim Crow unionism. Labor Day, Decoration Day, and Fourth of July marches were incubators of nationalist pageantry in which white workingmen venerated the veteran alongside the industrial soldier and the union label alongside the American flag. By World War I, the Federation had used Civil War memory to embrace class conciliation and nationalism as leaders, and “respectable” workers complied with government repression of the labor left.