The rise of socialism in the United States parallels the sprawl of industrial capitalism. The intellectual debates about how Marxism would play out in America became ever more complex when the Socialist Labor Party considered the idea race. Dr. Lorenzo Costaguta joins the show to explain how scientific racism - in its various forms - divided socialist activists and eventually contributed to the decline of the Socialist Labor Party of America.

Essential Reading:

Lorenzo Costaguta, Workers of All Colors Unite: Race and the Origins of American Socialism (2023).

Recommended Reading:

Daniel E. Bender, American Abyss: Savagery and Civilization in the Age of Industry (2013).

Philip S. Foner, American Socialism and Black Americans: From the Age of Jackson to World War II (1977).

Paul Heideman (ed.), Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question, 1900-1930 (2018).

Sally M. Miller (ed.), Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Early Twentieth-century American Socialism (1999).

Mark Pittenger, American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920 (1993).

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