Lizabeth Cohen's “Making A New Deal” Book summary\review

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Making A New Deal
Lizabeth Cohen's “Making A New Deal” explores how factory workers were able to become a part of the 1930's unions and political movements. Throughout her book, she explains how the Chicago workers were able to make choices on whether to attend to personal matters or be a part of the various ethnic society meetings. As well, they were faced with other decisions of whether to support the new A&P or to shop in the local stores. The ways through which the workers made decisions had a political significance in Chicago during the 1930s since it was a way of showing their loyalty to the state. However, they did not directly participate in any politics. The book points out how the survival tactics that the workers had developed in the 1920s were undermined. The undermining was a result of the great depression impact in 1930, where the workers working hours and salaries were highly reduced. This meant that they could no longer sustain the kind of lifestyle that they had developed. In an attempt to adapt to the new collective action, the workers developed new strategies. Among them was overcoming the long-lasting divisions. This could only be made possible by being a part of the labor union. As a result, the Chicago workers ended up into the CIO unionists and the New Deal Democrats (Cohen 1990). Their experience as wage earners, blacks, and citizens, among others, made it easy for them to converge into the union.
The CIO played a substantial role in enabling the workers to cre...