2020 Book of the Year • International Labor History Association Honorable Mention • Philip Taft Labor History Prize This rich history details the bitter, deep-rooted conflict between industrial behemoth International Harvester and the uniquely radical Farm Equipment Workers union. The Long Deep Grudge makes clear that class warfare has been, and remains, integral to the American experience, providing up-close-and-personal and long-view perspectives from both sides of the battle lines. International Harvester – and the McCormick family that largely controlled it – garnered a reputation for bare-knuckled union-busting in the 1880s, but in the 20th century also pioneered sophisticated union-avoidance techniques that have since become standard corporate practice. On the other side the militant Farm Equipment Workers union, connected to the Communist Party, mounted a vociferous challenge to the cooperative ethos that came to define the American labor movement after World War II. This evocative account, stretching back to the nineteenth century and carried through to the present, reads like a novel. Biographical sketches of McCormick family members, union officials and rank-and-file workers are woven into the narrative, along with anarchists, jazz musicians, Wall Street financiers, civil rights crusaders, and mob lawyers. It touches on pivotal moments and movements as wide-ranging as the Haymarket "riot," the Flint sit-down strikes, the Memorial Day Massacre, the McCarthy-era anti-communist purges, and America's late 20th-century industrial decline. Both Harvester and the FE are now gone, but this largely forgotten clash helps explain the crisis of yawning inequality now facing US workers, and provides alternative models from the past that can instruct and inspire those engaged in radical, working class struggles today. "Generously appointed with period illustrations and rare photos, the volume is a tour-de-force of labor history related through a personal lens of family commitment to labor organizing." — International Labor History Association Book of the Year, 2020 “A capitalist family dynasty, a radical union, and a revolution in how and where work gets done- Toni Gilpin's The Long Deep Grudge is a detailed chronicle of one of the most active battlefronts in our ever-evolving class war.” —John Sayles "Written with clarity and grace, Toni Gilpin’s The Long Deep Grudge examines the conflict between International Harvester and the Farm Equipment Workers Union in order to provide new and trenchant insights into both the strengths and weaknesses of “radical” unionism from the 1880s through the 1970s." —2020 Taft Labor History Award honorable mention award “Toni Gilpin’s The Long Deep Grudge is a remarkable accomplishment, which succeeds on multiple levels. The definitive history of an important but largely forgotten labor organization and its heroic struggles with an icon of industrial capitalism, this book is also a compelling and deeply moving reflection on the tragic history of radical industrial unionism in Twentieth Century America. It is essential reading for anyone who truly wishes to understand the history of labor and class struggle in this country.” —Ahmed A. White, author, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America “In The Long Deep Grudge, Toni Gilpin does more than simply excavate the story of a largely forgotten Midwestern union with a small but vibrant heyday more than six decades ago. This highly readable history contains important insights for those concerned with revitalizing a more activist-oriented labor movement to overcome the stark economic inequalities surrounding us today. This saga of the Farm Equipment Workers’ victories over major industrialists in 1940s Chicago and Louisville offers a vivid reminder that in a nation built on racial capitalism, the hard work of bridging long-standing racial divides and of promoting black leadership is vital to successful organizing to improve working people’s lives. Unions work best, Gilpin’s work illustrates, when they inspire their members to push past the norms around them to advance a passionate shared vision for a fairer workplace. Highly recommended." —Catherine Fosl, director, Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research “Toni Gilpin brings us a vivid story of greed, revenge, and the search for justice. It’s about the McCormick family, whose passionate anti-unionism helped to bring us the Haymarket tragedy, and the multiple generations of workers who refused to forget, and finally took them on. This is a riveting labor history drama that will stir your soul. Farm Equipment workers in the 1930s reawakened the spirit of resistance, providing a model for thinking about how to get power, and how to think and act with a radical vision. They refused to concede to corporations the structuring of the workplace or the economy; they connected union rights with civil