Blood on Steel: Chicago Steelworkers and the Strike of 1937

In the wake of the myriad cases of police brutality that have dominated recent headlines, I expect readers will find much resonance in Michael Dennis's new history of the 1937 Memorial Day massacre. Indeed Dennis's central argument is that the 1937 massacre of picketing Chicago unionists should be understood not as a mere isolated incident of police violence, but as a flashpoint in a larger social struggle that "challenged the authority of management to dictate the terms and conditions under which average Americans earned a living" (p. vii). The steel strike, Dennis argues, was but part of a broader campaign for union representation, shop floor control, and social democracy. This argument, of course, will not surprise interested scholars. Instead, at 117 pages (a reduction of a previous work), Blood on Steel seems intended as a neat introduction to New Deal-era working-class activism (and business response) through the lens of a very powerful and moving moment in American labor history.