Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis examines progressivism in the Seattle labor movement between 1919 and 1938. Using newspaper records, special collections and archival material, organizational publications, current scholarly texts, and a range of other sources this thesis seeks to understand how progressive labor debate and reform dialog continued between the general strike and the CIO. Analysis is broken up into three phases, the Seattle Central Labor Council under James Duncan, the workers' education movement through the Seattle Labor College, and the cannery workers' and longshoremen's transition to the CIO in 1937. Ultimately this thesis argues that Progressivism in Seattle labor was driven outside the labor movement when Seattle labor opponents deemed mainstream progressive leaders radical for their class-oriented views and their strong shift toward politics, but class-conscious progressivism survived through workers' education, providing a clear link between the progressive labor reformers of post-WWI Seattle and the CIO reformers of the 1930s.