From the depression of the 1890s through World War I, construction tradesman held an important place in San Francisco's economic, political, and social life. Michael Kazin's award-winning study delves into how the city’s Building Trades Council (BTC) created, accumulated, used, and lost their power. He traces the rise of the BTC into a force that helped govern San Francisco, controlled its potential progress, and articulated an ideology that made sense of the changes sweeping the West and the country. Believing themselves the equals of officeholders and corporate managers, these working and retired craftsmen pursued and protected their own power while challenging conservatives and urban elites for the right to govern. What emerges is a long-overdue look at building trades as a force in labor history within the dramatic story of how the city's 25,000 building workers exercised power on the job site and within the halls of government, until the forces of reaction all but destroyed the BTC.

Michael Kazin is a professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University and the coeditor of Dissent. His books include War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 and American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.

Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 3
I The Rise to Power 
1 "Where Unionism Holds Undisputed Sway": San Francisco in the Progressive Era 13
2 Ascent to Isolation, 1896-1902 36
II The Use of Power
3 Leaders 67
4 The Closed-Shop  Empire: From Job Site to Labor Temple 82
5 Social Conflict and the Earthquake, 1903-1907 113
6 Reform, Utopia, and Racism: The Politics of California Craftsmen 145
7 The Misgoverning of San Francisco, 1908-1911 177
II The Loss of Power
8 Perils of Compromise in the Exposition City, 1912-1915 217
9 Dynamics of Defeat, 1916-1921 234
10 The Building Trades in an Open-Shop City 270
Conclusion 277
Appendixes 293
Index 307