Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2026

Document Type

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Degree Name

B.A. in History

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, History

First Advisor

Susan Schulten

Second Advisor

Jonathan Sciarcon

Third Advisor

Bill Philpott

Fourth Advisor

Elizabeth Escobedo

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Keywords

Democracy, West, Coal, Rockefeller, Labor, Ludlow Massacre

Abstract

By 1914, democracy was clearly connected to America’s political ethos, and Wilson and Frank Walsh only amplified the term. Against this backdrop, labor and CF&I sought to define their movement as aligned with the national project of industrial democracy, despite having divergent understandings of the term. CF&I and Rockefeller built upon decades of social betterment, in addition to new ideas of company unionism to create their definition of industrial democracy, while workers returned to union recognition as a tool of power to construct their definition of industrial democracy. This paper argues that conflicting definitions of industrial democracy after the Ludlow Massacre held on one side by labor and the other by CF&I and Rockefeller shaped their ideological battle and revealed the fundamental irreconcilability of the conflict. This conflict would be ongoing, as the company-sponsored union would remain until the New Deal, and during that time workers continued to strike for true union recognition.

Copyright Date

6-16-2026

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Ava Welty

Provenance

Received from Author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

66 pgs

File Size

1.56 MB

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