“Provided Only that their Voice was Strong”

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Abstract
Students of the labor movement have been fascinated with the years between 1933 and 1946 for the impact they had on the experiences of workers in subsequent years, and because they redefined the possibilities for concerted working class action. In this article we present quantitative historical analyses to address the following issues: (1) In what ways did the various modes of worker action stimulate mass unionization efforts? (2) Under what conditions was strike activity enhanced or dissipated by existing levels of organization? and (3) How do rare events—such as sitdown strikes—sustain more normal expressions of working class action?