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Dissertation Information for Joe William Trotter Jr.

NAME:
- Joe William Trotter Jr.

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (USA) (1980)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: THE MAKING OF AN INDUSTRIAL PROLETARIAT: BLACK MILWAUKEE, 1915-1945

Abstract: "This study is an examination of demographic, economic, social, political, and institutional changes in Milwaukee's black population between 1915 and 1945. The study is organized around the process of proletarianization and seeks to document the process and significance of Afro-American urban-industrial working-class formation. This process entailed a fundamental economic shift of blacks from traditional agricultural pursuits and from urban domestic and personal service work into manufacturing occupations.

Undergirding the making of Milwaukee's black industrial working-class was the complex interaction of changes in the larger urban economy with transformations in politics, the state, and a shifting pattern of racial ideology and practice. These developments dramatically transformed Afro-American institutional life, class structure, politics, race relations, and housing conditions. The character of these changes receive in-depth attention, especially the precarious economic position of the working-class, growing stratification within the black population, and increasingly abrasive race relations. The basic thesis of the study is that the making of an Afro-American industrial working-class, more than simply the process of ""ghetto formation,"" fundamentally shaped the black urban experience between 1915 and 1945. Indeed, it is argued, the phenomenon of ""ghettoization"" itself is illuminated by a systematic focus upon the proletarianization process.

The study is divided into three parts. Part One, the introduction, is comprised of two chapters. Chapter I presents a critical review of the sociological and historical literature on blacks in Northern cities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Conceptual and theoretical limitations in the research are pinpointed, an alternative perspective suggested, and a rationale for the selection of blacks in Milwaukee as the city for documenting the process of proletarianization between the two World Wars is advanced. Socio-economic, political, and institutional experiences of blacks in pre-World War I Milwaukee are highlighted in Chapter II. Here the emphasis is placed on the nearly complete relegation of Afro-Americans to the domestic and personal service sector of the industrializing city.

The process and significance of proletarianization is the subject of Part Two; the migration of Southern blacks into the city, increasing movement of blacks into the industrial work force, the struggle for better housing conditions, emergence of the tiny black business and professional elite, an intensifying pattern of white racial hostility, and shifting ideological currents are documented. Particular emphasis is placed on expanding Afro-American working-class consciousness and its growing challenge to entrenched racial consciousness. Part III focuses on the highly tenuous economic position of the black working-class. Chapter VI documents the eruption of racial violence in Milwaukee's labor market, the growing CIO-black alliance, and the persistence of black unemployment until World War II production stimulates their belated return, after all white workers, to industrial jobs by 1943.

Chapter VII traces the persistance of conflict between racial and proletarian consciousness and behavior through a focus on black institutions, politics, and race relations. Finally, while each section incorporates a comparative dimension, the study concludes with a more focused discussion of the comparative experience of blacks in Milwaukee. Utilizing Milwaukee as a special case, Chapter VIII argues for the utility of proletarianization as both an alternative to ghetto formation in research on black life in Northern cities and as a vehicle for fresh comparative research on Afro-American urban life. This is accomplished by contrasting the making of Milwaukee's black industrial working-class to that of whites in Northern cities and to that of Afro-Americans in both Northern and Southern cities."

MPACT Scores for Joe William Trotter Jr.

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:30:39

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