"Don't Sleep with Stevens!" The J. P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963-80

"Don't Sleep with Stevens!" The J. P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963-80. By Timothy J. Minchin. New Perspectives on the History of the South. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, c. 2005. Pp. xvi, 239. $59.95, ISBN 0-8130-2810-8.)

"Don't Sleep with Stevens!" The J. P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963-80 chronicles one of the most compelling stories in southern labor history. Utilizing new archival sources as well as a variety of insightful oral histories, Timothy J. Minchin has authored the first full-length study of the famous boycott and organized labor's seventeen-year quest for a contract at J. P. Stevens. Minchin argues that the story of J. P. Stevens contradicts the long-held assumption that unions suffered from high levels of both bureaucracy and conservatism in the post-World War II era. Rather, Minchin suggests, the boycott proves that organized labor was able to be...