Sunshine Was Never Enough - by John H M Laslett (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Delving beneath Southern California's popular image as a sunny frontier of leisure and ease, this book tells the dynamic story of the life and labor of Los Angeles's large working class. In a sweeping narrative that takes into account more than a century of labor history, John H. M. Laslett acknowledges the advantages Southern California's climate, open spaces, and bucolic character offered to generations of newcomers. At the same time, he demonstrates that-in terms of wages, hours, and conditions of work-L.A. differed very little from America's other industrial cities. Both fast-paced and sophisticated, Sunshine Was Never Enough shows how labor in all its guises-blue and white collar, industrial, agricultural, and high tech-shaped the neighborhoods, economic policies, racial attitudes, and class perceptions of the City of Angels.

Laslett explains how, until the 1930s, many of L.A.'s workers were under the thumb of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. This conservative organization kept wages low, suppressed trade unions, and made L.A. into the open shop capital of America. By contrast now, at a time when the AFL-CIO is at its lowest ebb-a young generation of Mexican and African American organizers has infused the L.A. movement with renewed strength. These stories of the men and women who pumped oil, loaded ships in San Pedro harbor, built movie sets, assembled aircraft, and in more recent times cleaned hotels and washed cars is a little-known but vital part of Los Angeles history.

From the Back Cover

"John Laslett's Sunshine Was Never Enough is an extraordinary work of historical synthesis and interpretation, which brings to more than a century of labor history in Los Angeles the insights of a new generation of social, labor, and political historians. Laslett is highly sensitive to questions of race, gender, immigration, conservative politics, left-wing movements, and political economy, all essential in any contemporary effort to chart the history of the working class, past or present."

--Nelson Lichtenstein, MacArthur Foundation Chair in History, University of California, Santa Barbara



"John Laslett's comprehensive overview of the labor history of Los Angeles is a long-awaited contribution. The narrative of Sunshine Was Never Enough begins in the late nineteenth century, when the city was in its infancy, and tracks developments over an arc ending in the early twenty-first century, by which time Los Angeles had become the nation's second largest metropolis and a rare beacon of hope for the U.S. labor movement. For too long, southern California was seen as a remote backwater. With this engaging volume, L.A. labor and the scholarship on it that has burgeoned in recent years finally has the careful treatment it deserves." --Ruth Milkman, author of L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement



"John Laslett's latest book represents a significant contribution to the field of labor studies and labor history. The Los Angeles labor movement has emerged as a dynamic focal point of the new American labor movement, and Laslett's comprehensive and thoughtful analysis provides a much needed historic foundation. This is an invaluable resource for labor scholars and labor leaders alike."

--Kent Wong, Director, UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education

Review Quotes

"Laslett has given us an indispensable resource in this broad, overarching history of workers' movements in a remarkable city."--Chris Rhomberg "Journal of American History" (7/3/2016 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

John Laslett is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author or co-author of many books including Labor and the Left, Failure of a Dream?, Colliers Across the Sea, and History of the ILGWU in Los Angeles.