Social Democracy in the City: Class Politics and Municipal Reform in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920

FAIN: FA-55891-11

H. Shelton Stromquist
University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA 52242-1320)

The project is a book-length transnational, comparative study of the municipal origins of independent labor politics from 1890 through 1920, the formative period of social democratic parties of a wide variety across the industrializing world. The book argues that the crucible of the city and the urban crises spawned by industrialization are essential to understanding the character and limitations of this new politics, but the municipal arena has been neglected in studies that largely focus on national and parliamentary political development. The book draws on extensive archival research in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom. With the research essentially completed, I have drafted three of the planned ten chapters. An NEH Fellowship will permit me to complete the writing of the remaining chapters and prepare the manuscript for publication. I expect to publish the book with Oxford University Press.

Associated Products

Municipal Socialism and the Contested Politics of Everyday Life, 1890-1920 (Book Section)
Title: Municipal Socialism and the Contested Politics of Everyday Life, 1890-1920
Author: H. Shelton Stromquist
Editor: David Mayer and Jürgen Mittag
Abstract: Municipal Socialism and the Contested Politics of Everyday Life, 1890-1920
Year: 2013
Publisher: Akademischer Verlagsanstalt
Book Title: Interventions: The Impact of Labour Movements on Social and Cultural Development

Domestic ‘dogs of war’ unleashed: the comparative fates of municipal labor and socialist politics in the US and Australia during the Great War (Book Section)
Title: Domestic ‘dogs of war’ unleashed: the comparative fates of municipal labor and socialist politics in the US and Australia during the Great War
Author: H. Shelton Stromquist
Editor: Greg Patmore and Shelton Stromquist
Abstract: Domestic ‘dogs of war’ unleashed: the comparative fates of municipal labor and socialist politics in the US and Australia during the Great War
Year: 2016
Book Title: Intersections and Divergences: US and Australian Labor in Transnational and Comparative Perspective

Case Exhibits (Book)
Title: Case Exhibits
Author: Stromquist, H. Shelton
Publisher: State Historical Sociey of Wisconsin
Type: Single author monograph

The Municipal Franchise and the Fight for Urban Working-Class Citizenship in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920 (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Municipal Franchise and the Fight for Urban Working-Class Citizenship in Comparative Perspective, 1890-1920
Author: Shelton Stromquist
Abstract: The paper was presented at the Annual national conference of the Labor and Working-Class History Association in Washington, D.C. The paper, drawn from parts of several chapters in my book manuscript, examined the concept of "urban citizenship" and the struggle to define the boundaries of working-class participation in municipal civic life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Much of the agitation centered around the highly restrictive municipal franchise that limited access to the ballot and a significant political voice around critical issues of everyday life in cities. The paper examined the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and the U.S. The end of WWI produced significant expansion of suffrage but also renewed efforts by elites to limit "home rule" as an alternate method of disfranchisement.
Date: 06/1/2015
Conference Name: Annual Conference, Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), 2015, Washington, D.C.

Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism (Book)
Title: Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism
Author: Shelton Stromquist
Abstract: For more than a century, municipal socialism has fired the imaginations of workers fighting to make cities livable and democratic. At every turn propertied elites challenged their right to govern. US labor historian, Shelton Stromquist, offers the first global account of the origins of this new trans-local socialist politics, based on research in seven countries (Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Britain, Austria and the US) and dozens of cities. He explains how and why cities after 1890 became crucibles for municipal socialism. Drawing on the colorful stories of local activists and their social-democratic movements in cities as diverse as Broken Hill, Christchurch, Malmö, Bradford, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Hamilton, OH, the book shows how this new urban politics arose. Long governed by propertied elites, cities in the nineteenth century were transformed by mass migration and industrialization that tore apart their physical and social fabric. Amidst massive strikes and faced with epidemic disease, fouled streets, unsafe water, decrepit housing, and with little economic security and few public amenities, urban workers invented a local politics that promised to democratize cities they might themselves govern and reclaim the wealth they created. This new politics challenged the class power of urban elites as well as the centralizing tendencies of national social-democratic movements. Municipal socialist ideas have continued to inspire activists in their fight for the right of cities to govern themselves.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: http://www.versobooks.com/books/4111-claiming-the-city
Primary URL Description: https://www.versobooks.com
Access Model: Published hardback and ebook
Publisher: Verso Books
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-83976-77
Copy sent to NEH?: No

"Municipal Socialism" (Book Section)
Title: "Municipal Socialism"
Author: Shelton Stromquist
Editor: Marcel van der Linden
Abstract: No abstract available. General overview of the history of municipal socialism globally.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-socialism/9B69BC920779CC707D3AA79D76769C1D?pageNum=2&searchWithinIds=9B69BC920779CC707D3AA79D76769C1D&productType=BOOK_PART&searchWithinIds=9B69BC920779CC707D3AA79D76769C1D&productType=BOOK_PART&so
Primary URL Description: No description.
Access Model: Published hardback.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Title: The Cambridge History of Socialism, 2 v.
ISBN: 978-1-108-6113

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