Focusing on the operation and influence of the Knights of Labor—the leading labor organization of the nineteenth century—Workingmen's Democracy explores the dreams, achievements, and failures of a movement that sought to renew the democratic potential of American institutions.

Runner-up in both the John H. Dunning Prize and Albert J. Beveridge Award competitions|Preface xi
1 Working-Class Radicalism in the Gilded Age: Defining a Political Culture 3
2 The Uses of Political Power: The Knights of Labor and the State 18
3 When Cleon Comes to Rule: Popular Organization and Political Development. Part 1: Rochester, New Hampshire 38
4 When Cleon Comes to Rule: Popular Organization and Political Development. Part 2: Rutland, Vermont 66
5 City-Building and Social Reform: Urban Workers within the Two-Party System, Kansas City, Kansas 112
6 Together but Unequal: Southern Knights and the Dilemmas of Race and Politics, Richmond, Virginia 149
7 Bullets and Ballots: Worker Mobilization and the Path to Municipal Socialism, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 178
8 Labor, Party Politics, and American Exceptionalism 219
Selected Bibliography: Primary Sources 234
Index 239| Runner-up in both the John H. Dunning Prize and Albert J. Beveridge Award competitions — John H. Dunning Prize
Runner-up in both the John H. Dunning Prize and Albert J. Beveridge Award competitions — Albert J. Beveridge Award
|Leon Fink is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His books include The Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order and Workers in Hard Times: A Long View of Economic Crises.