ABSTRACT
Advocacy newspapers played an important role in the growth and political clout of U.S. workers and unions starting in the mid-1800s. Without such publications, workers wouldn’t have had a voice or audience for grievances about dangerous factories, mines and mills. Mainstream newspapers overwhelmingly favored corporate management’s side of the stories, reflecting the strong grip that “robber barons” such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie had over the nation’s publishers.
But the circulation of advocacy newspapers was mostly short-lived, until the arrival of the combined AFL-CIO publication, which spanned decades of labor victories and defeats across the nation. One big reason was the lack of unity across unions, farmers and political factions, as well as the economic forces that stymied organizing and publication. The papers that thrived did so with pages of passion and opinion. Many are credited for playing a key role in the eventual improvements in the U.S. labor laws, such as shorter workweeks, safer workplaces and stricter child labor laws.
