"Today in the USA millions are discontented with the two main parties, as a recent attempt by union activists to launch a labor party demonstrates. Yet few are aware that 1918-24 saw the most substantial attempt, to date, by organized labor to build a labor party. Between these years major city centres of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in the face of opposition from the national AFL leadership, launched labor parties.

In 1924, the AFL supported an independent presidential candidate for the first time."--BOOK JACKET.

"Yet for the most part historians have paid scant attention to this activity. This comparative study of organized labor in New York, Chicago and Seattle, 1918-24, not only attempts to fill this lamentable gap in US historiography but also challenges the 'exceptionalist' view of the American class system. For the failure to build a labor party had more to do with opposition from the employers, the main parties and the AFL leadership than any ideological commitment to the 'American Dream'."--BOOK JACKET.