The Yankee International: Marxism and the American Reform Tradition, 1848-1876 / Edition 1

by Timothy Messer-Kruse

Overview

Examining the social and intellectual collision of the American
reform tradition with immigrant Marxism during the Reconstruction
era, Timothy Messer-Kruse charts the rise and fall of the
International Workingman's Association (IWA), the first
international socialist organization. He analyzes what attracted
American reformers—many of them veterans of antebellum crusades for abolition, women's rights, and other radical causes—to the IWA, how their presence affected the course of the American Left, and why they were ultimately purged from the IWA by their orthodox Marxist comrades.
Messer-Kruse explores the ideology and activities of the
Yankee Internationalists, tracing the evolution of antebellum
American reformers' thinking on the question of wage labor and
illuminating the beginnings of a broad labor reform coalition in
the early years of Reconstruction. He shows how American
reformers' priority of racial and sexual equality clashed with
their Marxist partners' strategy of infiltrating trade unions.
Ultimately, he argues, Marxist demands for party discipline and
ideological unity proved incompatible with the Yankees' native
republicanism. With the expulsion of Yankee reformers from the
IWA in 1871, American Marxism was divorced from the American
reform tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847053
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	06/08/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.75(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

Timothy Messer-Kruse is assistant professor of labor history at the University of Toledo.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. The American Reform Tradition
Chapter 2. Marx and the Republican Tradition of the First International
Chapter 3. The New Democracy
Chapter 4. The Rise of the Yankee International
Chapter 5. Marxism, Civil Rights, and the Sources of Division in the American International
Chapter 6. The Marxist Coup and the Splitting of the American International
Chapter 7. Race and Class in the Two Internationals
Chapter 8. The International, the Working Class, and the Trade Unions
Epilogue. The Legacy of the Yankee International
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Illustrations

Caroline Burnham Kilgore
Col. Richard Josiah Hinton
Victor Drury
Cyrenus Osborne Ward
Joshua King Ingalls
Poster announcing a mass meeting called by Section 26 of Philadelphia
Thomas Phillips
Meeting of the IWA Central Committee in New York City
New York City IWA parade
A formal ball of the Skidmore Guards, 1872

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An important and timely contribution to the growing literature on nineteenth century American radicalism. . . . Messer-Kruse does a superb job recapturing the radicalism of the American activists about whom he writes. . . . Messer Kruse's book is a welcome advance by the New Labor History onto a terrain long held without real challenge by other old-fashioned Marxist scholars.—Labour History Review



An absorbing, well-researched study. . . . Should bring renewed attention to a crucial moment in the history of the American Left and inspire fresh thinking about the sources and potential for social change in our own time.—New England Quarterly



Messer-Kruse's work is an entertaining examination of the events, circumstances, and personalities that led to the formation, organization, and disintegration of the American branch of Karl Marx's International Workingmen's Association.—Choice



This fresh and provocative study of the First International's suppressed American branch shows that the idealism of antebellum reformers remained vital to the Gilded Age labor movement. Messer-Kruse's reappraisal of 'Yankee socialism' not only scores points against Marxist orthodoxy; it may well lead scholars to reconfigure the history of the American Left.—Carl J. Guarneri, author of The Utopian Alternative

Editorial Reviews

[I]t may well lead scholars to reconfigure the history of the American Left.

Carl J. Guarneri, author of "The Utopian Alternative"

An absorbing, well-researched study.

"New England Quarterly"

"[I]t may well lead scholars to reconfigure the history of the American Left.

Carl J. Guarneri, author of "The Utopian Alternative""

"An absorbing, well-researched study.

"New England Quarterly""

Messer-Kruse does a superb job recapturing the radicalism of the American activists about whom he writes.

"Labour History Review"

Messer-Kruse's work is an entertaining examination.

"Choice"

From the Publisher