Houston's working class and the origins of organized labor in the Bayou City -- How it all began : Houston, labor, oil, and working at Mr. Hughes's place -- Labor at Hughes Tool, 1929-1934 : hard times, Jim Crow, unions, and Uncle Sam -- Industrial democracy comes to the monarchy of Hughes...

Skyscrapers, building trades councils, and the rise of the structural building trades -- Alliance -- The founding brothers : from the Structural Building Trades Alliance to the Building Trades Department -- "Sticking apart" : work, jurisdiction, and solidarity -- The high price of unity :...

"The South is today, as it always has been, the key to understanding American society, its politics, its constitutional anomalies and government structure, its culture, its social relations, its music and literature, its media focus, its blind spots, and virtually everything else. The Golden Key...