Tramps & Trade Union Travelers: Internal Migration and Organized Labor in Gilded Age America, 1870–1900

A historical examination of why American workers failed to organize an independent labor party in early industrial America and the implications for today. Rather than attributing this to lack of class-consciousness among American workers, Kim Moody uses archival research to demonstrate that workers across ethnic and racial groups in the Gilded Age often displayed high levels of class consciousness and political radicalism. Moody argues that high levels of internal migration during the late 1800s—driven by uneven industrialization—created instability in worker organizations. Millions of workers moved between states and cities, undermining efforts to build independent labor-based parties in the 1880s and 1890s. Using detailed research and primary sources, Moody traces how "pure-and-simple" unionism came to dominate by century's end, despite the presence of a significant socialist minority in organized labor. The book also examines the "tramp" phenomenon and labor migration patterns in the Gilded Age.