Workers on the Waterfront

Workers on the Waterfront
Author: Bruce Nelson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 1990
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780252061448

With working lives characterized by exploitation and rootlessness, merchant seamen were isolated from mainstream life. Yet their contacts with workers in port cities around the world imbued them with a sense of internationalism. These factors contributed to a subculture that encouraged militancy, spontaneous radicalism, and a syndicalist mood. Bruce Nelson's award-winning book examines the insurgent activity and consciousness of maritime workers during the 1930s. As he shows, merchant seamen and longshoremen on the Pacific Coast made major institutional gains, sustained a lengthy period of activity, and expanded their working-class consciousness. Nelson examines the two major strikes that convulsed the region and caused observers to state that day-to-day labor relations resembled guerilla warfare. He also looks at related activity, from increasing political activism to stoppages to defend laborers from penalties, refusals to load cargos for Mussolini's war in Ethiopia, and forced boardings of German vessels to tear down the swastika.

Empires on the Waterfront

Empires on the Waterfront
Author: Catherine L. Phipps
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2020-05-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684175488

"Empires on the Waterfront offers a new spatial framework for understanding Japan’s extended transition into the modern world of nation-states. This study examines a largely unacknowledged system of “special trading ports” that operated under full Japanese jurisdiction in the shadow of the better-known treaty ports. By allowing Japan to circumvent conditions imposed on treaty ports, the special trading ports were key to achieving autonomy and regional power.Catherine L. Phipps uses an overtly geographic approach to demonstrate that the establishment of Japan’s maritime networks depended on initiatives made and carried out on multiple geographical scales—global, national, and local. The story of the special trading ports unfolds in these three dimensions. Through an in-depth assessment of the port of Moji in northern Kyushu, Empires on the Waterfront recasts the rise of Japan’s own empire as a process deeply embedded in the complicated system of maritime relations in East Asia during the pivotal second half of the nineteenth century."

Wobblies on the Waterfront

Wobblies on the Waterfront
Author: Peter Cole
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0252090853

The rise and fall of America's first truly interracial labor union For almost a decade during the 1910s and 1920s, the Philadelphia waterfront was home to the most durable interracial, multiethnic union seen in the United States prior to the CIO era. For much of its time, Local 8 was majority black, always with a cadre of black leaders. The union also claimed immigrants from Eastern Europe, as well as many Irish Americans, who had a notorious reputation for racism. This important study is the first book-length examination of how Local 8, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, accomplished what no other did at the time. Peter Cole outlines the factors that were instrumental in Local 8's success, both ideological (the IWW's commitment to working-class solidarity) and pragmatic (racial divisions helped solidify employer dominance). He also shows how race was central not only to the rise but also to the decline of Local 8, as increasing racial tensions were manipulated by employers and federal agents bent on the union's destruction.

I Cover the Waterfront

I Cover the Waterfront
Author: Max Miller
Publisher: Skyhorse
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2014-09-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1632200023

“Distinctive, original, fresh in in tone and manner, with a quaint whimsicality of feeling and expression.”—The New York Times Life on the Western waterfront has always fascinated Max Miller, a special reporter for the San Diego Sun. Embraced by all the waterfront folk, he has joined them on their cruises, has learned the mystery of their crafts, and knows them like brothers. Max himself has become a part of the waterfront. Not a fishing boat ties up to the wharf without Max Miller getting the story. Not a submarine comes in nor an airplane soars out over the water without Max Miller’s being invited to go. He is one of the first men to climb up the ladder of the Pacific lines, especially when celebrities are aboard. A combination of newspaper reporter, philosopher, and poet, the author writes his charming sketches in his “studio” upstairs in the tugboat office, where he can look out over his domain. But reporting is not simply a job with Max Miller; it is the greatest pleasure of his life. He delights in setting down his impressions of the Western shore, where life is a constant flux and reflux, seasonal, immutable, and yet ever exciting—the departure of the sardine fleet, the hunt for elephant seals for the zoo, the sailing of the California fruit liners. I Cover the Waterfront was first published in the early 1930s and has since gone on to become a classic. It is as memorable for its unique stories as it is for its individual style—so keenly sensitive to the personalities of men and to the romantic environment of the harbor and deep-sea life.

Liberty on the Waterfront

Liberty on the Waterfront
Author: Paul A. Gilje
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2012-04-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812202023

Through careful research and colorful accounts, historian Paul A. Gilje discovers what liberty meant to an important group of common men in American society, those who lived and worked on the waterfront and aboard ships. In the process he reveals that the idealized vision of liberty associated with the Founding Fathers had a much more immediate and complex meaning than previously thought. In Liberty on the Waterfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution, life aboard warships, merchantmen, and whalers, as well as the interactions of mariners and others on shore, is recreated in absorbing detail. Describing the important contributions of sailors to the resistance movement against Great Britain and their experiences during the Revolutionary War, Gilje demonstrates that, while sailors recognized the ideals of the Revolution, their idea of liberty was far more individual in nature—often expressed through hard drinking and womanizing or joining a ship of their choice. Gilje continues the story into the post-Revolutionary world highlighted by the Quasi War with France, the confrontation with the Barbary Pirates, and the War of 1812.

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront
Author: Malcolm Malone Johnson
Publisher: Chamberlain Brothers
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN:

Until the mid-20th century, organised crime ruled New York's waterfront. Then Malcolm Johnson's groundbreaking series, Crime on the Waterfront, appeared in The New York Sun, revealing a violent underworld that influenced all levels of New York's politics, society and industry. Johnson's extensive investigation finally forced the government to take action and led to changes in law that affected the whole country. Collected for the first time, these Pulitzer Prize-winning articles tell the riveting story of mobsters, murder faith and the ultimate victory of fair play.

Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront

Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront
Author: Anthony Bushard
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2012-12-27
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810883996

Released in 1954, On the Waterfront is considered one of the greatest films of all time, winning eight Academy Awards—including Best Picture—and placing in the top 20 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Films survey. The film’s Oscar-nominated score represented a rare venture into film music composition by Leonard Bernstein, one of the towering figures of classical music in the 20th century. In Leonard Bernstein’s On the Waterfront: A Film Score Guide, Anthony Bushard examines this landmark work, a score that continues to influence composers of film and classical music alike. The book begins with a biographical survey of Bernstein’s work, followed by an exploration of Bernstein’s compositional method, a look at the context of the film, and an analysis of the score itself. Though other volumes have focused on Bernstein’s overall career, Bushard's book is the first to look specifically at the score of this film. A welcome examination of one of Bernstein’s most accomplished works, Leonard Bernstein’s On the Waterfront: A Film Score Guide highlights the invaluable contributions of this great composer and will be appreciated by fans of classical music and film scores.

Waterfront Manhattan

Waterfront Manhattan
Author: Kurt C. Schlichting
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1421425238

"Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the city's government did not have the responsibility or the fiscal resources to develop needed port facilities. To build the infrastructure, the government awarded "water-lots" to private individuals to build wharves and piers, surrendering public control of the waterfront. For over 250 years private enterprise ran the waterfront; the city played a peripheral role. By the end of the Civil War chaos reigned and threatened the port's dominance. In 1870 the city and state created the Department of Docks to exercise public control and rebuild the maritime infrastructure for the new era of steamships and ocean liners. A hundred years later, technological change in the form of the shipping container and jet airplane rendered Manhattan's waterfront obsolete within an incredibly short time span. The maritime use of the shoreline collapsed, mirroring the near death of the city of New York in the 1970s. Ships disappeared and abandoned piers and empty warehouses lined the waterfront. The city slowly and painfully recovered. The empty waterfront allowed visionaries and planners to completely reimagine a shore lined with parkland. Along the new waterfront, luxury housing has transformed the waterfront neighborhoods where the Irish longshoremen once lived. A few remaining piers offer spectacular views of the city's waterways, now a most precious asset. The rebirth has been driven by complex private/public partnerships, with the city of New York playing only a peripheral role. The contentious question of private vs. public control of the waterfront remains a continuing issue in the 21st century"--

Beyond the Edge

Beyond the Edge
Author: Raymond Gastil
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2002-10-25
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781568983271

Through an insightful look at projects from around the world and at the current design proposals for New York itself, the author paints a portrait of redevelopment that is both pragmatic and visionary, one that holds the promise of reconnecting New Yorkers to their waterfront as a vital place of work and of public life."--BOOK JACKET.

Working and Thinking on the Waterfront

Working and Thinking on the Waterfront
Author: Eric Hoffer
Publisher: Hopewell Publications
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2009-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781933435299

Working and thinking on the waterfront is a glimpse into, not only Hoffer's personal life, but his process while postulating his great future works.