Winner of the New York Labor History Association's Barbara Wertheimer Prize in 2009, this history explores the 1959 strike of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat by the St. Louis Newspaper Guild. Though it started as a dispute over pension benefits, the strike expanded to focus on job security and managerial rights. This strike exemplifies the continuing labor conflict that dominated the 1950s and 1960s, yet has been largely overlooked or forgotten by historians.
The 1959 St. Louis Newspaper Guild Strike reveals the true nature of the decades following World War II as not a Golden Age, but a Gilded Age. Not to be confused with the violent labor conflicts of the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, the Gilded Age of the 1950s and 1960s was a period during which the labor struggles were channeled into collective bargaining. The lack of violence created the perception of compromise and harmony to the public, but the move to collective bargaining did not tame labor relations as negotiations remained bitterly contested and did not become a one-sided dictation of terms. However, these postwar strikes, of which the St. Louis conflict was only one, were covered by the public’s disengagement from labor issues, which created the perception of a “Golden Age.” The postwar economic boom allowed the public to ignore the struggles of the men and women on the picket lines and at the bargaining table until the 1970s.
The 1959 St. Louis Newspaper Guild Strike reveals the true nature of the decades following World War II as not a Golden Age, but a Gilded Age. Not to be confused with the violent labor conflicts of the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, the Gilded Age of the 1950s and 1960s was a period during which the labor struggles were channeled into collective bargaining. The lack of violence created the perception of compromise and harmony to the public, but the move to collective bargaining did not tame labor relations as negotiations remained bitterly contested and did not become a one-sided dictation of terms. However, these postwar strikes, of which the St. Louis conflict was only one, were covered by the public’s disengagement from labor issues, which created the perception of a “Golden Age.” The postwar economic boom allowed the public to ignore the struggles of the men and women on the picket lines and at the bargaining table until the 1970s.
