"Protestantism and the American Labor Movement: The Christian Spirit in the Gilded Age"

by Gutman, Herbert G (1966)

Abstract

LABOR historians and others have puzzled over precisely how and why American workers, especially those critical of the new industrial order, re- acted to the profound changes in the nation's social and economic structure and in their own particular status between I850 and I900, but in seeking ex- planations they have studied almost exclusively working-class behavior and trade-union organization and have neatly catalogued the interminable wranglings between "business" unionists, "utopian" dreamers, and "so- cialist" radicals. Although their works have uncovered much of value, the "mind" of the worker-the modes of thought and perception through which he confronted the industrialization process and which helped shape his behavior-has received scant and inadequate attention. American work- ers, immigrant and native-born alike, brought more than their "labor" to the factory and did not view their changing circumstances in simple "economic" terms. So narrow an emphasis ignores the complexity of their lives and experiences and, in general, distorts human behavior. "Events, facts, data, happenings," J. L. Talmon reminds us, "assume their significance from the way in which they are experienced."' These pages examine one of several important but overlooked influences on the disaffected worker's thought: the way certain strands of pre-Gilded Age Protestantism affected him in a time of rapid industrialization and radical social change.

Keywords

Protestantism, Social Change, America Labor Movement, The Christian Spirit, Labor History, Utopianism, Disaffection

Themes

Links to Reference

• http://www.jstor.org/stable/1848171
• http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1848171
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/1848171?casa_token=jUbK5Zs_gW8AAAAA:XzUjF_6d-pR6XJkHlOPb20y93RwGteAfiFxU5xyfPF8ZBENLt3ER9RxCrpJ-PClUIUw1g3-4Ul5j-20oNLsSdTia6TKfDq0yd81E1ul2pJJdDjBwv-onSQ
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1848171.pdf?casa_token=oR7PzA0WkYQAAAAA:1v02whC7otBPbVPx-WGItAkP98z0jZvMujvgX2drC0SRlhYEwPX0inZZfzBxT8YKEklfazKvH577soOoYrVn68Hqg23yquyMezawm6RBEVpkh-YKbjPKZw

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