Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886-1923 - Softcover

"Steelmasters and Labor Reform offers valuable insight into the evolution of labor policy. . . . The book adds an important dimension to the historian's understanding of management-labor relations during the steel industry's non-union era, the nearly four decades from the Homestead strike to the National Labor Relations Act." --Business History Review "A fine piece of historical scholarship, well grounded in both primary materials and the relevant secondary literature, taking care to fit individual and sectoral experience into a 'bigger picture, ' and adding substantially to our knowledge of a neglected and complex subject." --Labor History "Eggert points out the importance of the Progressive reformers as a pressure group. With skill, he indicates not only the influence they had, as United States Steel feared antitrust action or laws to control hours, but also the limits of the reformers' influence when suggested changes forced management to choose between profits and good public relations. . . . Provides much of value for students of both labor and history." --American Historical Review

Gerald G. Eggert provides a fascinating inside view of top steel officials arguing their positions on various labor reforms-stock purchase plans, employer liability, employee representation, and elimination of the twelve-hour shift and seven-day work week, during the late eighteen and early nineteenth century.