Waubonsee Community College

A living wage, American workers and the making of consumer society, Lawrence B. Glickman

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-213) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

A living wage

bibliography

36767632

Lawrence B. Glickman

American workers and the making of consumer society

"A Living Wage," the rallying cry of union activists, is a concept with a revealing history, here documented by Lawrence B. Glickman. The labor movement's response to wages shows how American workers negotiated the transition from artisan to consumer, opening up new political possibilities for organized workers. At the same time, however, they created contradictions that continue to haunt the labor movement today. Nineteenth-century workers saw wages as dangerous, Glickman reveals, because workers hoped to become self-employed artisans rather than permanent employeesIn the decades after the Civil War, organized workers began to view wage labor differently. Redefining working-class identity in consumerist terms, unions demanded a wage that would reward workers commensurate with their needs as consumers. Glickman brings the story of the living wage up to the present, clearly demonstrating how a historical perspective on the concept of a living wage can inform our understanding of current controversies

Introduction: Rethinking Wage Labor -- pt. I. From Wage Slavery to the Living Wage. Ch. 1. That Curse of Modern Civilization. Ch. 2. Idle Men and Fallen Women -- pt. II. The Social Economy. Ch. 3. Defining the Living Wage. Ch. 4. Inventing the American Standard of Living -- pt. III. Workers of the World, Consume. Ch. 5. Merchants of Time. Ch. 6. Producers as Consumers -- pt. IV. The Living Wage in the Twentieth Century. Ch. 7. Subsistence or Consumption? Ch. 8. The Living Wage Incorporated -- Coda: Interpreting the Living Wage and Consumption