Preview
  • The Practical Utopians

  • American Workers and the Cooperative Movement in the Gilded Age
  • By: Steve Leikin
  • Narrated by: Timothy W. Bader
  • Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Practical Utopians

By: Steve Leikin
Narrated by: Timothy W. Bader
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Between 1865 and 1890, in the aftermath of the Civil War, virtually every important American labor reform organization advocated "cooperation" over "competitive" capitalism and several thousand cooperatives opened for business during this era. The men and women who built cooperatives were practical reformers and they established businesses to stabilize their work lives, families, and communities. Yet they were also utopians - envisioning a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labor and freely exercise democratic citizenship in the political and economic realms. Their visions of cooperation, though, were riddled with hierarchical notions of race, gender, and skill that gave little specific guidance for running a cooperative.

The Practical Utopians closely examines the experiences of working men and women as they built their cooperatives, contested the meanings of cooperation, and reconciled the realities of the marketplace with their various and often conflicting conceptions of democratic participation. Dealing with a critically important yet largely ignored aspect of working-class life during the late 19th century, The Practical Utopians brings crucial aspects of the cooperative movement to light and is a necessary study for all scholars of history, labor history, and political science.

The book is published by Wayne State University Press.

©2005 Wayne State University Press (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about The Practical Utopians

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A rarely discussed part of American history.

Fantastic insights into the challenges, triumphs, shortcomings, and lessons of cooperative business in the 1900s.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful