Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines how differences in local political engagement and civic identities among late-19th and early-20th-century businessmen shaped business approaches to the labor problem. The case studies are Cincinnati and San Francisco. Members of these two business communities differed sharply in their civic practices and discourse. Cincinnati employers tended to be active in civic clubs and cultural improvement, and they celebrated nonpartisan, "above class" political engagement. Their San Francisco counterparts were less involved in civic uplift, but they also recognized class organization as a natural basis for political representation. These different models of municipal governance reappear in the two communities' understanding of labor's industrial rights and in their relations with labor unions.