In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from forty-five to seventy-two years. Weaving together a narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic...

"A Living Wage," the rallying cry of union activists, is a concept with a revealing history, here documented by Lawrence B. Glickman. The labor movement's response to wages shows how American workers negotiated the transition from artisan to consumer, opening up new political possibilities for organized workers. At the same time, however, they created contradictions that continue to haunt the labor movement today. Nineteenth-century workers saw wages...