Irving Bernstein - Research

Research

Bernstein earned critical praise for the first two books of A History of the American Worker, a trilogy about the American labor movement in the interwar period. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 focuses on the decline of the American labor movement following World War I. A decade later, he published The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941, in which he described American unions' growth under the New Deal. In both books, Bernstein argued that the New Deal and labor unions preserved democracy and capitalism at a time when the survival of both was unclear, and that New Deal labor policy dramatically reoriented public policy away from employers toward workers.

The third book in his historical trilogy, A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression was less well received. The book shied away from legislative enactments and union politics and examined the broader political and social changes which occurred under the New Deal. The book was called "neither fresh nor complete," although critics said it captured well the emotional tenor of the Great Depression and Roosevelt' impact on the American people.

Bernstein's work had a deep impact on labor studies.

"His contributions to UCLA and to labor history were enormous," said Michael Lofchie, chairman of the university's political science department. "He was the great documentarist of the difficulties that labor organizations faced either in getting themselves organized or maintaining their organizational viability during the Depression years."

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., called him "...pre-eminent among historians of American labor history", and former University of California president Clark Kerr declared him "...the leading historian of labor relations in the United States now active in the field."