Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
1974
Keywords
Labor, 20th century, United States, Politics and government, Working class
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
First Advisor
Charles B. Forcey
Second Advisor
Richard M. Dalfiume
Third Advisor
Melvyn Dubofsky
Abstract
In nature, thunder cannot exist without lightning. In the political realm, however, the two are separable. Rumblings of discontent can, and often do, occur without the firebolt of revolution.
The depression of the 1930s was a decade of thunder on the left in the United States. The working class became increasingly conscious of itself and discontented with the existing socio-economic system. The peals were always there, and they often reached crescendos. Yet the full force of the tempest never broke upon America in the thirties. The pages that follow explore the thundering and seek to explain how Franklin D. Roosevelt acted as a lightning rod, helping American capitalism weather the most furious storm of working-class discontent in the twentieth century.
Recommended Citation
McElvaine, Robert S., "Thunder without lightning : working class discontent in the United States, 1929-1937" (1974). Graduate Dissertations and Theses. 232.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/dissertation_and_theses/232