| American Rubber Workers & Organized Labor, 1900-1941 Subjects: Trade-unions -- Rubber industry workers -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Trade-unions -- United States -- Organizing -- History -- 20th century; In 1900 the manufacture of rubber products in the United States was concentrated in several hundred small plants around New York and Boston that employed low-paid immigrant workers with no intervention from unions. By the mid-1930s, thanks to the automobile and the Depression, production was concentrated in Ohio, the labor force was largely native born and highly paid, and labor organizations had a decisive influence on the industry. Daniel Nelson tells the story of these changes as a case study of union growth against a background of critical developments in twentieth-century economic life. |