Following the Civil War, the next three chapters of “People’s History” primarily talk about America’s Labor movement and various strikes. That is followed by World War One, which precedes another chapter on labor. It is here that Zinn reveals his true passion as a historian of America’s Labor and anti-war movements, and for a brief period this book is worth reading again. If Zinn could have focused on a specific book chronicling the history of each movement, as well as a third book covering American communists, he would added some very valuable and insightful works to history. Instead it’s all mashed together in the leftist fantasy that is “A People’s History,” which is a shame. Between the Civil War and World War One millions of immigrants came to America and found a better life, but according to Zinn, they were helpless victims of the establishment, and the rags to riches idea is just a myth used for control.
Zinn has a full chapter on Robber Barons like J. P. Morgan and Rockefeller, who must have been evil since they were rich. Zinn cites a study of steel, textile, and railroad executives in the 1870s showing that 90% of them born middle or upper class. Using this, he says of America’s stories of rags to riches “were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.” (1) Again he cites 1870, not long after a Civil War which devastated the country. But what of later periods? Would it be the same after millions of immigrants came to America over the next 40 years? (By the way, as of 2008, 25% of people with assets of $500,000 or more got their wealth from inheritance and earnings, 6% from just inheritance, and 69% got their wealth from work, investments, and business ownership. (2) That’s almost the exact opposite of what Zinn says.) Well, regarding those immigrants, he says “The immigrants were more controllable, more helpless than native workers, they were culturally displaced, at odds with one another, (3). That’s just outright insulting. Not to mention he follows this with tales of people not being helpless at all. Chicago’s International Working People’s Association published newspapers in 5 languages, held mass demonstrations, and had 5000 members. (4) Should Zinn be considered a People’s champion for calling immigrants helpless? Let’s take a real look at this period to see how the immigrants really fared.
Between 1866, the end of the Civil War, and 1915, 25 million people immigrated to the United States, including Jews escaping from Russian pogroms. (5) Once again the American Jewish experience proves Zinn wrong. When they came to America, their children went to university, became doctors, lawyers, and set up small businesses, some of which later became big businesses like Sears, and Roebuck. Benjamin Bloomingdale’s family came from Bavaria and in 1872 opened a dry goods store. By 1888 he had over 1000 employees. Jewish publishing houses started, like Random House, Simon & Schuster, Viking Press, and members of immigrant families ran the New York Times and New York Post. (6)
As he’s done throughout this book, Zinn misses how American life, though not without challenge, was much better and more free than the places immigrants came from. Clara Hancox’s parents came to America in the early 20th century, and says “There’s something wonderful about being an immigrant. There’s something so deliciously naive and happy about being an immigrant who has escaped from something. My father would say from time to time, no matter how bad things were, at least we were free. (7) She continues
“There were no bathrooms there were toilets, they were in the hallway, but my mother and father thought that this was wonderful because in the old country the toilets were in the backyard and the fact that in the kitchen we had not only running water so that you didn’t have to go to the well, but we had hot water. My mother ever week that she did the wash she said how wonderful how wonderful we have hot water.”
By 1900 America leads in all industries. The average U.S. citizen lived longer, was more educated, was paid and fed better than anyone else in the world. Historian Thomas Hughes says “The United States was, without question, the most inventive nation in the world in that period. It is comparable in it’s creativity to the renaissance in Italy for example, to the period of Elizabeth in English history, the Shakespearean period.” (8) It was during this time that people from humble backgrounds like Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and countless others made innovations such as the light bulb, the phonograph, and the airplane, which improved lives of people all over the world.
Henry Ford for example, changed the whole world by giving people a mobility they never had before. He invented the Model T, a cheap automobile. In 1908 it cost $850, by 1916 it cost $360 (9) Automobiles were available in Europe, but they were mostly toys for the rich. If the American establishment truly wanted to keep people down, why give them this tool for mobility? Not to mention Ford paid his factory workers 5$ for an 8 hour day, at a time when the average wage for industrial work was $11 a week. (10) You could be cynical and say he only payed those wages so they could buy Model Ts and Ford would get richer, but is that really an evil thing? How is anyone’s lives hurt by an increasing wages and mobility? Yes by the way Henry Ford was an anti-Semite, who had a publication called The Dearborn Independent sold at Ford dealerships. This publication had various anti-Semetic articles and was even read by one Adolph Hitler. Zinn makes no mention of any of this, I learned this in 9th grade history class. I guess traditional education works after all.
Upon reading this section again something very interesting hit me. “People’s History” talks very little about the experience of the American Indian. The opening chapter covers Columbus in the Caribbean, and chapter 7 offers 23 pages of President Jackson and his conflict with the Creeks and the Cherokees, which takes us up to the 1830s. Later he gives a page to the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, but this is only to set up a full account of the 1970s Wounded Knee uprising. I would concede to Zinn that this is more than his hated “traditional textbooks” cover, but still it’s interesting that the coverage is so minimal. Particularly in the post Civil War period, there’s little to no mention of the various broken treaties, Custer, the Navajos, the Cheyennes, white man’s careless killing of the Bufallo, the Black Hills, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geranimo, the oil in Oklahoma, etc. (For a full account of the Indians fate during the Old West, read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown.) “People’s History” is often praised for showing a dark side to American History, but there’s nothing worse in American history than what happened to the Indians. The Labor movement, for all it’s blood and sacrifice, has something to show for itself. We have things like 8 hour work days, child labor laws, etc. Zinn chronicles every beating that occurred in every strike and criticizes the idea of the American dream, but if you want to criticize America there’s no better way to do it than to chronicle the Indian. True, traditional textbooks have the sin of omission in neglecting the Indian, but to some degree, so does Howard Zinn.
This brings us to the 20th century, where the real beating begins.
1 Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2005 p 254
2 Website about inheritance and wealth http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/04/inheritance-is-not-main-driver-of.html
3 Zinn 267
4 Zinn 268
5 Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 577
6 Johnson 579
7 Our Century: America’s Time ABC Network and History Channel Documentary. Volume 1. The Beginning: Seeds of Change
8 Our Century: The Beginning: Seeds of Change
9 Johnson 606
10 Johnson 607
And Now for Something Serious 