Silk Stockings and Socialism - by Sharon McConnell-Sidorick (Paperback)

About the Book

"In an effort to get their rightful due as producers, the young women and men who worked in the hosiery mills of Kensington, the working class heart of Philadelphia, organized the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (AFFFHW), a movement that swept Philadelphia and eventually had a significant impact on the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the New Deal, and labor feminism. In the first history of this remarkable union, Sharon McConnell-Sidorick tells the story of how radical socialist unionists explicitly tapped into Jazz Age culture to build a militant youth movement whose young men and women continued dancing, partying, and flouting Prohibition while at the same time attending labor education sessions and engaging in battles with police"--

Book Synopsis

The 1920s Jazz Age is remembered for flappers and speakeasies, not for the success of a declining labor movement. A more complex story was unfolding among the young women and men in the hosiery mills of Kensington, the working-class heart of Philadelphia. Their product was silk stockings, the iconic fashion item of the flapper culture then sweeping America and the world. Although the young people who flooded into this booming industry were avid participants in Jazz Age culture, they also embraced a surprising, rights-based labor movement, headed by the socialist-led American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (AFFFHW).

In this first history of this remarkable union, Sharon McConnell-Sidorick reveals how activists ingeniously fused youth culture and radical politics to build a subculture that included dances and parties as well as picket lines and sit-down strikes, while forging a vision for social change. In documenting AFFFHW members and the Kensington community, McConnell-Sidorick shows how labor federations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations and government programs like the New Deal did not spring from the heads of union leaders or policy experts but were instead nurtured by grassroots social movements across America.

Review Quotes

A thoroughly researched and elegantly written account that enriches our understanding of the interwar years. In a compelling analysis, the book shows how labor activism shaped working-class identity and contributed to an emerging social welfare state at a time of economic crisis and cultural change."--American Historical Review

Grounded in archival research and oral history interviews. . . . McConnell-Sidorick does not shy away from questions of race and sexuality where her evidence speaks directly to these topics. Recommended.--Choice

Sharon McConnell-Sidorick's engaging history of a radical labor union in 1920s Philadelphia speaks to some of the most exciting developments in labor and women's history.--Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

Skillful weaving of the interrelationship of human rights, women's rights, and industrial unionism and the importance of a community-based approach in teasing out the threads of worker's activism.--Labour/Le Travail