Book Time #7: Gangs and Unions
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Book Time! I've got a few reviews for you as well as another Q&A, this time with Hamilton Nolan, author of The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor. You can find that at the bottom of the email.
But first, you may have noticed Book Time now has a logo! If you don't see it, make sure you've enabled loading images for this email. Thanks so much to Adam Fisher-Cox for putting this together.
The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor, Hamilton Nolan
The first time I joined a union was in high school when I got a job at Modell’s Sporting Goods. To this day if I close my eyes real tight I hear the “Gotta go Mo’s!” song play in my head and I invite the sweet release of death. In exchange for that lifelong trauma I had a part-time job that paid me near-minimum wage with no benefits. I was perplexed by the union dues coming out of my paycheck.
The second time I joined a union was the summer of 2015 when I worked at VICE. We had been organizing for a few weeks when Variety ran a story about one of our owners, Shane Smith, buying a mansion in Santa Monica for $23 million that had been featured in the hit show Entourage. I was making $45,000 a year at the time, which was $10,000 more than many of my colleagues. By the end of the day, we had pretty much everyone’s union cards signed. We had a contract not long afterwards which instantly gave us all significant raises among other benefits.
In a way, I owe this all to Hamilton Nolan. We were the second digital media company to organize with the Writers Guild of America, East. The first was Gawker. Nolan, then a writer at Gawker, wrote an article in 2014 headlined “Working at Vice Media Is Not As Cool As It Seems” (true). After that was published, an organizer for WGAE contacted Nolan about who at VICE they should talk to about organizing. Nolan invited them to organize Gawker instead. In the end, they would organize both, and many other shops, too.
Nolan's new book fills an important gap in the available literature on unionization in America. There are countless books about the history of American labor or whether Unions Are Good. Nolan doesn't treat unions as a monolith, because there is a paradox at the heart of American capitalism right now. Workers are as mistreated, angry, and fed up as they have been in a century. At the same time, people like unions more than they have in decades and are trying to organize their workplaces more and more. So why are unionization rates still falling?
That question is at the heart of The Hammer. There is no one better than Nolan, an experienced labor journalist and unionist to the core, to answer it. It is not the first book on unions you should read, but it is the first one to read on what’s going on with unions right now.
Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working Class Voters Are Turning Away From The Democratic Party, Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol
I have reported on heavily unionized industries like freight rail, public transportation, and the USPS. It didn’t take long for me to notice that American labor politics is very different from what it used to be. I thought union members voted Democrat. Their unions certainly tell them to. But many union members don't. What gives?
Rust Belt Union Blues is the best answer to that question I have found to date. Co-authored by an esteemed sociologist and a then-undergraduate student (!), Union Blues combines dozens of interviews with current and retired union workers in western Pennsylvania with data analysis and broader literature review. The result is a nuanced, thoughtful overview of how blue collar union workers went from overwhelmingly Democrat to largely Republican—and deeply Trump—in just a few decades.
In less capable hands, this book would be boiled down to some sound bite takeaway like “union halls were replaced with gun clubs.” Fortunately, we get a work much more nuanced than that. Such massive shifts don’t occur for any one reason, or even two or three.
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, Herbert Asbury
Gangs of New York is a classic work of quasi-non-fiction made famous by an ass-numbingly long Scorsese film. Unlike the film, which takes place during one period, the book stretches across more than a century of scum and villainy, and is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a cement block of the foundation on which the city rests, gains its strength, and grows with time. Books like Gangs help make New York what it is, for better or worse.
Gangs is an “informal history,” according to the subtitle, a description that ought to be taken seriously. It was published in 1927 with a brief bibliography and non-existent endnotes. This was typical of the time. I’m not accusing Asbury of anything, but the first half of the book prior to the Draft Riots in particular reads more like a series of tall tales than a work of history. I would categorize Gangs more as a book of gangland lore than non-fiction, probably the best we will ever do about a time, place, and period with little to no accurate documentation.
As one might expect, Gangs is fun as hell to read, a New York City classic. Thanks to Gangs and other works like it, people still think of New York as a wild place where anything goes. It’s a reputation that became self-reinforcing over time and makes the city feel both unliveable and essential.
BONUS: One of the best parts of reading Gangs for me was learning all the old timey New York gangland nicknames. Here are my favorites:
Jack the Rat, Sadie the Goat, Lizzie the Dove, Lupo the Wolf, Patsy the Barber, Sweeney the Boy, Socco the Bracer, Tom the Mick, Reddy the Blacksmith, Jane the Grabber, Harry the Soldier, Ludwig the Bloodsucker, Paddy the Priest, Ike the Blood (not to be confused with Ike the Plug), Louie the Lump, Kid Shanahan, Kid Yorke, Kid Dropper, Kid Glove Rosie, Lobster Kid, The Darby Kid, Little Freddie, Little Mike, Little Kishky, Circular Jack, Eat em Up Jack McManus, Wild Jimmy Hagerty, Wild Bill Lovett, Wild Maggie Carson, Cowlegged Sam McCarthy, Peg Leg Lonergan, Hop Along Peter, Stumpy Malarkey, Dinky Davis, Slim Reynolds, Piggy Noles, Hell-Cat Maggie, Bull Hurley, Baboon Connolly, Boiled Oysters Malloy, Lobster Kid, Mush Riley, Hungry Joe, Wreck Donovan, Cyclone Louie, Crazy Lou, Crazy Butch, Clubber Williams, Mallet Murphy, Butcher Bill Poole, Battle Annie, Rubber Shaw, Rags Riley, One-Armed Charley Montell, Dutch Hen, Scotchy Lavelle, Johnny Spanish, Handsome Sam Suydam, Happy Jack Mulraney, Big Nose Bunker, One Lung Curran, Blind Mahoney, Dirty Face Jack, Baby Face Willie, Dandy Johnny Dolan, Greedy Jake Rand, Old Flaherty, Gentle Maggie, Slobbery Jim, Bum Mahoney, Traveling Mike, Red Light Lizzie, Banjo Pete Emerson, Diamond Charley, Hoggy Walsh, Googy Corcoran, Red Rocks Farrell, Bunty Kate, Suds Merrick, Slipsley Ward, Red Shay Meehan, Goo Goo Knox, Humpty Jackson, Pugsy Hurley, Biff Ellison, Chick Tricker
and last but certainly not least,
Don Whiskerandos.
Q&A With Hamilton Nolan, author of The Hammer
What was the most influential book you read as you reported The Hammer?
I read a lot of labor history before I began the book. But personally I always avoid reading stuff on the same topic while I'm reporting and writing, I find it's easier to keep my own thoughts organized if I'm not taking in other people's thoughts on the same stuff at the same time. While I was writing the book I tried to read good novels to inspire good writing.
What’s your favorite book on U.S. labor history?
"From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend" and "A History of America in Ten Strikes" are both great starting points and very readable.
For someone who doesn’t know much about U.S. labor issues but wants to dive in, what book would you recommend they start with (other than The Hammer, of course)?
"Fight Like Hell" by Kim Kelly [Ed note: Kim is also my former colleague at VICE and a righteous unionist] is a good way to get inspired about the possibilities of the labor movement. "Beaten Down, Worked Up" by Steve Greenhouse is a good journalistic look at modern day union issues in America. "Dynamite" by Louis Adamic tells the story of how violent the US class war has been throughout history. Really any book that talks about normal people organizing and fighting back against what seem like overwhelming odds in America can be a good starting point. All roads of struggle lead to the labor movement sooner or later.