Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut

Nov 22 2024 19 ep. 113 mins 212

Haymarket Originals: Fragile Juggernaut Podcast artwork

Haymarket Originals is a new home for audio deep dives, by and for the left—brought to you by Haymarket Books. The first Haymarket Originals project is FRAGILE JUGGERNAUT: WHAT WAS THE CIO? Through a limited run of twenty episodes, a group of labor historians and organizers will revisit the near-mythical history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)—and the high water mark of US labor activity in the 1930s and 1940s—in the context of today’s critical juncture in the labor movement. Join Tim Barker, Andrew Elrod, Ben Mabie, Alex Press, Emma Teitelman, Gabriel Winant, and special guests as they explore the trajectory of the American working class through a period of its greatest drama and political possibility.

History Society & Culture

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

16. The West Coast

Nov 22 2024 154 mins

Episode 16 is the last in our three-episode regional series, offering a view of the CIO from the West Coast. Andrew, Ben, Emma, and Tim discuss what was distinct about the economy of the West: in this underdeveloped imperial context, working-class activity followed the supply chain, from coastal ports to inland warehouses and processing centers to the fertile valleys of California.

15. The South

Oct 15 2024 131 mins

Episode 15 of Fragile Juggernaut is the second of our trio of regional episodes, landing this time in the South. Ben, Emma, and Tim are joined by the celebrated historian Robin D.G. Kelley to discuss the patterns of Southern development, the rich organizational ecology of the region, the strategic misfires of the CIO, and the political and social bases of fascism in America. Fragil

Bonus Episode: What the CIO Reveals About the Movement Today

Oct 02 2024 92 mins

This week our crew at Fragile Juggernaut is delivering our third special bonus episode. Alex, Ben, Emma, Gabe, and Tim converged at Chicago’s Socialism conference to discuss what the CIO can make us alive to in the contemporary labor movement and our conjuncture more broadly. Our series has probed the history of the labor movement of the 1930s and 1940s–detailing its heroism, a

14. Working-Class New York

Sep 13 2024 150 mins

Episode 14 of Fragile Juggernaut is the first of our trio of regional episodes. It dials into New York City, the seat of the country’s largest manufacturing base, but one composed of a vast constellation of small and diverse shops; and also host to the nation’s largest port, transport system, white collar and cultural complex, and more. With the eminent historian Joshua Freeman

13. Impasse: 1937-1939

Sep 04 2024 128 mins

Episode 13 of Fragile Juggernaut surveys the impasse of the Second New Deal with the historian Ahmed White, when the newfound power of working-class organization in mass production confronted the counterattack of property and established social hierarchy. During 1937, the “Little Steel” Strike, the “Roosevelt Recession,” and the political dilemmas of union power in the

12. White Collar

Aug 16 2024 134 mins

Episode 12 of Fragile Juggernaut turns the lens on the situation and activity of white-collar, professional, and creative workers in the 1930s and 1940s. Together with guests Nikil Saval (state senator from Pennsylvania and author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace) and Shannan Clark (historian at Montclair State University and author of The Making of the American Creative

11. Who Gets the Bird? Communists and the CIO

Aug 05 2024 151 mins

Episode 11 of Fragile Juggernaut concerns the Communist Party and its complex role in the creation of the CIO. Andrew and Ben trace the strategic zigzags of America’s far-left, recount their pioneering role in organizing drives, and measure the Party’s own accounts of its politics against the often ambiguous, even contradictory realities of its practice. Did Communists merely s

Bonus Episode: Interlude

Jul 15 2024 21 mins

This week our crew at Fragile Juggernaut is delivering our second special bonus-episode: while we are on a brief summer hiatus, Andrew and Ben sum up the first half of our mini-series, drawing together the core themes of our show so far and discussing where we’ll go in the second half. Fragile Juggernaut is a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and

Bonus Episode: Know Your Enemy

Jun 21 2024 84 mins

This week our crew at Fragile Juggernaut is delivering our first special bonus episode. Tim and Ben talk with Sam-Adler Bell—an excellent writer and one-half of the brilliant Know Your Enemy podcast—about our series. Appearing on Know Your Enemy gave us a chance to explore a new dimension of our project: to think about the CIO not only as a moment when new social forces on the

10. Left, Right, and Center

Jun 07 2024 145 mins

Episode 10 of Fragile Juggernaut surveys the wide range of workers who united–and sometimes fought each other–under the banner of the CIO. We begin in the slaughterhouse, with special guest Rick Halpern explaining how the United Packinghouse Workers of America (PWOC/UPWA) brought together black and white workers despite segregation inside and outside the workplace. Then, the ho