Victims and observers of today’s ruthless anti-union employers will profit from reading Vilja Hulden’s deeply researched, well-written book about early twentieth-century bosses and their powerful organizations. Her new study, focusing on both national developments and local case studies, reminds us that the contemporary ruling class owes much to earlier generations of elites who practiced some of the same detestable deeds: refusing to recognize unions, firing labor organizers, and pitting unionists against anti-unionists.

The autocratic behavior of bosses and their lackeys was clear to all honest observers. Yet employers sought to draw attention from their own class privileges and exploitative practices, using high-minded language about protecting the rights of “free workers” (strikebreakers), the necessity of upholding “law and order” against “union tyranny,” and the importance of creating and defending “open-shop” workplaces. Holding membership in both national and local employer associations, they perfected the rhetoric of reform while acting like workplace dictators during the improperly named “Progressive Era.”