ABSTRACT
This paper explores the ways the influential American writer, Owen Wister, contributed to early twentieth-century anti-labour unionism. Most famous for his bestselling novel, The Virginian (1902), Wister was highly active in employers’ association circles. As one of the Citizens’ Industrial Association of America’s (CIAA) chief propagandists, Wister defended the rights of non-union workers and the open-shop system of management, which discriminated against trade unionists. In the process, he complemented the arguments used by employers, those most intimately impacted by the so-called “labour problem.” Much more than a novelist, Wister published anti-union articles in mainstream newspapers like Harpers and the Saturday Evening Post and addressed anti-union organizations around the country. Many of the themes Wister championed in his writings - individual rights, respect for law-and-order, and the righteousness of vigilante violence against lawbreakers - helped justify previous acts of elite violence. Moreover, I speculate that his writings helped to inspire anti-union activists engaged in labour disputes shortly after the publications of the enormously popular The Virginian and his lesser-known book, Lady Baltimore (1907). Both books justify elite forms of violence against insubordinate labourers at a time when many employers, including those active in the CIAA, participated in vigilante forms of anti-union repression. By focusing on literature and managerial violence in the so-called Progressive Era, this essay challenges some of the basic assumptions about this period. While most scholars insist that managers during this time embraced scientific management schemes and developed humane welfare capitalist programs, I highlight how Wister helped to legitimize what we might consider more primitive and violent forms of management.
