Rejoinder to Symposium on “Myth-Making as Labor History: Herbert Gutman and the United Mine Workers of America”

Rejoinder To Symposium on "Myth-Making as Labor History: Herbert Gutman and the United Mine Workers of America"

Herbert Hill

The publication of my essay "Myth-Making as Labor History: Herbert Gu tman and The Uni ted Mine Workers of America" in the Winter 1988 issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society has provoked discussion and controversy in m a n y quarters. The s ta tements tha t appeared in the last number of the Journal in response to my essay are representat ive of a wide spectrum of belief and reflect sharply divergent approaches to issues tha t reach beyond interpretat ion of labor history. I wish to express my t h a n k s to the commenta tors who part icipated in the discussion and hope tha t they found the exchange of ideas occasioned by this sympos ium useful and st imulat ing.

Professor Nell Irvin Painter in her s ta tement "The New Labor History and the Historical Moment ," makes a point of great relevance for this entire discussion. While acknowledging the importance, during the early 1970's, of Gutman ' s "role in forging the field of modern Afro-American history," and its personal implica- t ions for her at t ha t time, she observes tha t his work and its legacy are not i m m u n e to critical analysis. She reminds us tha t "Labor history, like any other intellectual under tak ing is not self-correct- ing," and tha t "sharp c r i t i c i s m . . , is necessary if the familiar Amer ican weakness, the wish to deny par t of the truth, is not to prevail indefinitely." It was in tha t spirit tha t I approached my study of Gutman ' s work on race in the UMW.

Unfor tuna te ly my extended rejoinder to Stephen Brier has absorbed most of the space allotted to me in this issue, but because his s ta tement is replete with distortions and falsification, I found it necessary, if only for the sake of the record, to respond in some detail. I t rus t the reader will unders t and the reasons for this, especially since in answer ing Brier's charges I am also responding to other critics who share his views, if only in part.

I know tha t there are those who cannot accept my criticism of Gu tman ' s s tudy of the UMW, but tha t is because for them,

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hag iog raphy has taken precedence over historical judgment . Others will appreciate the significance of this discussion: tha t it is par t of a cont inu ing a rgument aga ins t a distorted perception of race in Amer ican labor history.

Brier and the Issues

Stephen Brier, in his zeal to defend Gutman, has resorted to distortion, evasion and deliberate falsification. Brier writes: "I read a s imilar version of Hill's essay in the mid-70's," and he refers repeatedly to "this fifteen year-old essay . . . . " T h e manuscr ip t Brier refers to was not the essay publ ished in the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, but over 200 pages of raw da ta taken from the United Mine Workers" Journal, and other sources, inter- spersed with some notes in parenthesis . Tha t collection of research mater ia l was not published before because it was not publishable in its exist ing form and was not mean t to be. Brier charges tha t I waited unti l after Gutman ' s death to publish. He writes: "By finally publ ish ing this fifteen year-old essay now Herbert H i l l . . . has sadly made it impossible for Gu tman to defend himself aga ins t Hill 's a t tacks on his reputa t ion as a his tor ian." This accusation is reprehensible, especially since Brier knows tha t it is not true.

During his visit to Madison last September to register his daughter at the Univers i ty of Wisconsin where I am a member of the faculty. Brier and I discussed all of this. I informed h im of my recent critical work on Gu tman ' s in terpre ta t ion of the racial practices of the UMW in prepara t ion for its publicat ion as a chapter in my for thcoming book, "Discriminat ion, Work and Organized Labor: Essays in the Ideology of Race Consciousness." (The Journal essay is a shortened version of this chapter). We spent a long evening together in my home amiably discuss ing these mat ters and other aspects of his work and mine.*

*Because I was tully aware of Brier's ideological commitment to Gutman's views and of course knew of his staff position with the American Working-Class History Project (later the American Social History Project) where he had worked with Gutman since 1981, I repeatedly urged him to write a response to my essay. When he said that he was very busy and could not meet the deadline, I offered to intervene with the editor in order to have the deadline extended. I have known Stephen Brier since his days as a graduate student in California during the 1960's and while conscious of his sharp disagreement with me on the issue of race in American labor history (over the years we had argued many times), assumed that he would write a critical, but interesting commentary based on Gutman's perspective and that he would respond to my arguments in a substantive and reasoned manner. I regret that he has failed to do so.

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Find ing it "inexplicable" tha t I did not discuss his 1980 Labor History piece, Brier suggests tha t the omission is due to "the fact" tha t my essay was wri t ten "in the early 1970's." Even a cursory glance at the first page of the 199 reference notes at the conclusion of my essay will reveal Brier's misrepresentat ion and falsification. The first page of reference notes lists, among others, source mater ia l publ ished in 1976, 1984, 1979, 1987 and 1988 in tha t order. The last page lists documents published in 1987, 1977 and 1988. The second page of my essay contains a text footnote referring to sources dated 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1976, 1984, 1987 and 1988. Furthermore, there are extensive quotations, references and content notes th roughout which clearly relate to mater ial published within the recent past, but Brier states as "a fact" tha t this work was writ ten "in the early 1970's." Brier's 1980 piece published in the "Notes and Documents" section of an issue of Labor History is not addressed in my essay because it contains no th ing new worth discussing. It is a repetition of his 1977 article which I do discuss in a content note on page 137 of my essay. Count ing by lines, a lmost two-thirds of Brier's nine page 1980 piece consists of quotat ions from letters writ ten by Richard L. Davis. The rest of the article is a reworking of Brier's previous material , res ta t ing and reparaphras ing Gu tman (see footnotes 3 and 6) and repeat ing wha t he had already said in his previous piece (see footnotes 5 and 10). Brier m ay th ink this repetit ion is an impor tan t scholarly contribution, I do not.

Brier has failed to engage the issues. Quite obviously his s trategy is to defend Gu tman by denouncing Hill and then to at tack the dubious motives he ascribes to me. Ins tead of discussing the basic critical points raised in my essay, Brier tries to distract the reader 's a t tent ion from Gutman ' s failures and to shift the a rgument away from my critical analysis . He totally ignores the extensive section of my essay devoted to the active rote of the UMW in the anti-Asian m o v e m e n t and the un ion ' s embrace o f the ideology of whi te supremacy. Al though this history raises fundamenta l questions regarding Gutman ' s thesis, Brier writes not a single word in response.

It should be evident t ha t the s tudy of white working-class racism cannot be confined to black-white issues, as tha t his tory directly involves the experience of other non-white groups in the United States. The racial policies and practices of unions in relation to Asian workers is most significant, a l though ignored not only by Gutman, but by virtually all labor historians.

Brier ignores or fails to respond to other basic issues, such as the impor tan t problem of periodization, distortion of UMW membersh ip


data, the union 's refusal to define and enforce an anti-discrimination policy; failure of the UMW to support the promotion of black workers to skilled jobs and the grave long-term consequences of tha t policy, etc. etc. Avoidance of the major problems in Gutman ' s s tudy of the UMW raised in my essay characterizes Brier's s ta tement in defense of G u t m a n and serves to perpetuate the evasion of racial issues in American labor historiography.

Specificity of Critique

My essay in the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society is by choice and design limited to an analysis of one specific monogra ph by Gutman, on one specific subject. It is not addressed to any other work he m ay have wri t ten nor is it an evaluat ion of his oeuvre. Such an approach is entirely war ran ted and Brier's i nd ignan t a t tack upon me on this score clearly serves polemical ra ther t h a n scholarly ends.*

Brier takes me to task for not appreciat ing the totali ty of Gutman ' s work. He finds it "puzzling" tha t "Professor Hill never manages to ment ion" Gutman ' s other publicat ions in the field. Brier again "explains" tha t my essay was writ ten m a n y years before "Herbert Gutman ' s two major contr ibut ions to non-racist historical scholarship." Aside from the fact tha t this "explanat ion" is false, the a r g u m e n t also misses the impor t an t point tha t Gu tman ' s essay "The Negro and the Uni ted Mine Workers of America, The Career and Letters of Richard L. David and Someth ing of Their Meaning: 1890-1900" is the one work of Gu tman ' s tha t is devoted exclusively to the s tudy of black workers and organized labor. While other publicat ions by Gu tman deal with various aspects of labor history or black history, or touch upon this issue as par t of a larger canvas, no th ing else he has wri t ten is concerned directly and entirely with race and labor unions as the pr imary subject of the study.

Given the significance of the issue and the unique influence of Gu tman ' s essay, as well as my own long-term interest in the subject, there was good reason to concentrate on and deliberately l imit my

*Brier m a k e s o ther un founded cha rges to score deba te r ' s points . He claims, for example , t h a t I h a v e ignored F. A. B a n n i s t e r a n d A. T. Smoot, two b lack leaders f rom West Virg in ia . Bu t in fact, B a n n i s t e r is men t ioned on page 159 of m y essay a n d Smoot is d iscussed as p a r t of m y in te rv iew wi th a former b lack official f rom the s ame dis t r ic t in a sect ion t h a t was omit ted for r easons of space f rom m y Journal essay, bu t will appea r in the complete vers ion w h e n it is pub l i shed in m y book. I t is pe rhaps wor th n o t i n g t h a t G u t m a n neve r m e n t i o n s A. T. Smoot in h i s s tudy a n d t h a t I refer to severa l o the r b lack leaders no t m e n t i o n e d by G u t m a n , bu t t h i s is a po in t less g a m e I leave to Brier.

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study to Gutman's examinat ion of the concrete issue of black workers in a given union during a specific time and place. My essay is not intended to be an evaluation of Gutman's other work or of his entire career. I do not discuss The Black Family In Slavery and Freedom or any other study by Gutman because they are not the subject of my essay. (I have expressed myself elsewhere on other aspects of Gutman 's work. See for example my letter to The New York Times of October 12, 1976 defending Gutman's study on the black family and criticizing his detractors).

The Legal Brief and Historical Narrative

Brier picks up Nick Salvatore's uninformed argument which assumes tha t a legal brief is not "a reasoned analysis." Brier writes that a legal brief "is a work of advocacy for a cause" which "in fact discourages balance and assessment," in contrast to "historical writ ing" which is "critical, analytical and appropriately nuanced."

It is obvious that neither Salvatore nor Brier understand that a legal brief is not mere advocacy, but a record of history. This is especially true in the area of social policy law, where "balance and assessment" and "reasoned analysis" are essential to an effective brief. Such briefs require not only the presentation of fact and law, both pro and con, in an orderly manner, but also a logical analysis of how the law applies to the facts. The writing of a legal brief involves interpretation based on evidence, analysis and reason, within a logical and disciplined structure: exactly what the writing of history requires. Furthermore, there is the tradition of the legal brief which relies extensively upon history and the social sciences for its statutory or constitutional interpretation in regard to race, labor and social welfare legislation. The classic example is, of course, the famous "Brandeis br ief ' in Lochner, v. New York (198 U.S. 45). See also plaintiffs ' brief in Brown v. Board of Education (349 U.S. 294). For a discussion of the uses of social science in litigation, see Jack Greenberg, "Social Scientists Take the S tand- -A Review and Appraisal of their Testimony in Litigation" (54 Michigan Law Review, 953, 1956). Courts increasingly recognize the importance of history in deciding cases involving racial discrimination by labor unions; the historical interpretation is frequently part of the record, and invoked in judicial opinion. In the development of contemporary civil rights law, history has often been directly relevant in influenc- ing the judicial perception of racial discrimination and in the development of legal remedies. (The Wisconsin school of legal history has been especially interested in the relationship between


law and the social sciences. See for example the m a n y valuable studies by James Willard Hurst).

The great i rony here is tha t according to Brier's definition, every word tha t G u t m a n wrote was a brief, indeed "a work of advocacy for a cause." G u t m a n as a left h is tor ian had a case to make in support of an ideological position. Whatever he wrote was an a rgument for or aga ins t a cause, or a theory, or the in terpreta t ion of an event in the l ight of ideology. Gu tman used evidence or swept it aside to "prove" a thesis and much of Amer ican labor history, especially in relation to racial issues, is characterized by this approach. Brier's a rgument t ha t in cont ras t to brief writ ing, "historical wri t ing," especially labor his tory writing, is based upon "balance and assessment" is effectively contradicted in practice by labor historiography.

From Commons , Pe r lman and Taft to Gutman, Montgomery and Wilentz, labor his tor ians have all been pleading a cause. Commons, Pe r lman and Taft were pleading the cause of the Amer ican Federa- t ion of Labor; they wrote to legitimize Gompers and the AFL as the au thent ic Amer ican voice of labor and they succeeded in mak ing their interpretat ion of "business unionism" and the Federat ion the convent iona l view, the accepted, s t anda rd interpretat ion, for decades. When the doyen of labor historians. Phil ip Taft, explains in his book, Organized Labor in American History, t ha t the Molly Maguires were just a gang of murderers whose actions had no relation to their brutal exploitation in the mines nor to the ha rshness of their lives, or tha t organized labor's mi l i tant role in the anti-Asian movemen t was the result of job fear ra ther t h a n racist ideology, or tha t the Haymarke t Riot had little to do with the genuine American labor movement , we seek in vain for the "balance and assessment" Brier tells us is characterist ic of "historic writ ing," which is, according to him, "critical, analytical and appropriately nuanced."**

For some years now a younger generat ion of labor his tor ians has succeeded in promot ing another version of labor history and their work is no less ideological, no less "advocacy for a cause" t h a n the views held by the previous group, and while the context is somewha t different, they too distort and evade on racial issues. As Nell Irvin Pain ter has written, "The new labor history has a race problem . . . . Much of the new labor his tory has downplayed or completely

**No writer of legal briefs would dare to engage in the egregious distortions that Taft apparently had no hesitation in publishing. See for example his treatment of the speech by A. Philip Randolph and the resolution on racial discrimination introduced by delegates from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union at the 1941 Convention of the AFL. Compare Report of Proceedings, 61st., Annual Convention, American Federation of Labor, Seattle, Washington, October 16, 1941, pp. 490-91, with the account in Volume II of Taft's history of the AFL entitled The AFL From the Death of Gompers to The Merger, New York ~ 959, p. 446.

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overlooked racism . . . . " Painter points to the work of David Montgomery, "celebrating the machinists as the embodiment of the fine American republican tradition, without mentioning that they were ardently lily-whites." Commenting on the "flawed study by Sean Wilentz," Professor Painter points out that "In Chants Democratic, Wilentz makes a hero of a labor leader who is a racist and anti-semite. Mentioning racism virtually in passing, Wilentz fails to imbed racism in his analysis, which, given the central place tha t racism occupies in American culture, is necessary in labor history as in much of American Studies . . . . Neither Montgomery's late nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial workers nor Wilentz's antebellum New York workers make sense when their c o n t e x t s . . , are distorted through the deletion of black workers and white racism." My essay is written in the spirit of Professor Painter 's critique. Brier's essay is written as its antithesis.

Given tha t a common feature of the various schools of labor h is tory--pas t and present--is their distorted view of the issue of race, a maj or corrective is necessary, and honest debate can function as a continuing antidote to misinterpretation. Labor historians as a group perceive class as the decisive issue, and hence ignore or misrepresent race-consciousness in working class history. Those who write from a leftist ideological commitment need to make history conform to their theory, a theory which cannot accept the historical reality that exploited proletarians became oppressors, tha t exploited white workers, through their unions, derived benefits from the greater and different oppression suffered by blacks. Those of us who write from a perspective based on the historical record, rather than ideological preconceptions, have no need to "prove" a theory, but seek rather to apply necessary correctives to a body of flawed scholarship.

Jus t as historians of the old labor history wrote in support of their causes, so the new labor historians pursue their own ideological agenda. That agenda fails to recognize that Afro-Americans labored under a historical and ideological burden of race that was central and unique to the development of class relations in the United States. That agenda continues to deny the fundamental issue in American history: the issue of race.

Promotin9 the New Labor History

Herbert Gutman was the major figure in promoting the new labor history and in the movement to establish its assumptions as the universally accepted view. For this group, class and class conscious-


ness were and remain the decisive factor in history and they embraced an idealized, simplistic vision of the white working class. While a member of the faculty of the City University of New York, Gutman arranged for his American Social History Project to operate under the aegis of the University 's Graduate Center and obtained substantial f inancial support from a variety of public and private foundations.

This operation has now become a flourishing enterprise that sells or rents video cassettes and films, "Viewer Guides" and "Teachers ' Handbooks," sponsors a book publication program and other material "for classroom distribution" and mainta ins a film library, all of which is described in the Project's promotional brochures. Clearly, the American Social History Project has become an important institutional force in promoting Gutman's theories and the work of those who share his ideological position.

Much of the credibility and reputation of this enterprise and its interpretation of labor history depends on the credibility and reputation of Herbert Gutman and since Brier has made a career of popularizing and merchandizing Gutman's ideas (especially in the making, rent ing and selling of "educational" films on labor history) it is quite unders tandable that he would wish to argue in defense of Gutman's essay on race and the United Mine Workers and against my critical analysis. And this is what I invited him to do. But since Brier is unable to refute my critique of Gutman's study, and deliberately avoids the main issues I raised, he tries to discredit my argument by making unfounded charges and ad hominem attacks.

The Inevitability o f Racisim: Hill v. Brier

Brier distorts my position when he writes that Hill "sees racism as immutable" and when he claims tha t I believe "[racist] attitudes were inevitable." Not a scintilla of evidence is given for this assertion, which is completely false. I have in fact argued quite the contrary: tha t racist policies and practices in many labor organiza- tions were not born of necessity, were not inevitable; tha t people and institutions always had choices, and I have sought to identify and elucidate the reasons for the choices made.* I have also tried to

*For example, see my discussion of the benefits whites derive from racial discrimination as a factor in determining labor union practices and how the greater rate of exploitation of black workers "subsidizes higher wages and working conditions for whites, individually and as a class" in Discrimination In Labor Markets, edited by Orley Ashenfelter and Albert Rees (Princeton, 1973, pp. 113-123). Motivation for the campaigns of the railroad unions to eliminate black workers and the consequences of

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unders tand the brief, episodic moments of interracial cooperation among workers and why they failed, within the larger context of organized labor's long history of discriminatory racial practices.

Brier appears to believe that white workers "begin to shed racist attitudes and practices as they participate in inter-racial organiza- tions . . . . "Th is comment is sheer nonsense, and is contradicted by an extensive history. The litigation record involving labor unions since Title VII, the employment section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, went into effect is vast, and tells much about race and racism in organized labor. White workers repeatedly resisted changes in the traditional patterns of racial job segregation, especially in industrial unions with black members. It is significant that the compulsion of law was necessary to eliminate the discriminatory practices of many labor unions, both industrial and craft, and that organized labor's resistance to the changes required by civil rights laws has been a m aj or characteristic of its history in the years since the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955.

The historical record repeatedly demonstrates tha t it is only when racist practices are actually eliminated, usually as the result of federal court orders, and not because white workers "[begin] to shed racist att i tudes" that the possibility of an altered racial situation is inaugurated. For many years my work has been devoted to the elimination of such racist patterns: to making the specific concrete changes at the work place and in the labor unions that alone will achieve this goal. Brier completely ignores my extensive activity with black union members throughout the country during the more than two decades when I was National Labor Director of the NAACP, as well as my involvement in major cases that led to significant change in several industries.

Brier complains that Hill's "own work [is] o b s e s s e d . . , with revealing the unst int ing racism of the white working class and its unions." I very much regret that such work, obsessive or not, troubles Mr. Brier and others whose ideological commitments require them to engage in myth-making in the guise of labor history.

efforts to establish all-white job classifications are examined in detail in Herbert Hill, Black Labor and The American Labor System (Madison, 1985, pp. 334-372). Racist ideology as a strategy for assimilation by immigrant dominated labor unions is discussed in my essay in the forthcoming book, "The Question of Discrimination: Racial Inequality and the Labor Market," edited by Steven Shulman and William Darrity Jr. (Middletown, 1989).