A valuable book for students of unfree and coerced labor in the United States as well as those of prisons and racial criminalization from the early 1930s by the Communist Party’s Labor Research Association.

Forced Labor in the United States by Walter Wilson, Introduced by Theodore Dreiser. Labor Research Association. International Publishers, New York. 1933.

Contents: Introduction by Theodore Dreiser, I) What Is Forced Labor? Making a “Free” Contract, Capitalism as a More Efficient System of Exploitation, Forms of Labor Under Imperialism, Borderline Types of Forced Labor, II) Convict Labor, Who Are in Prison To-day?, Big Crooks Go Free, What Are the “Crimes”?, Third Degree, III) Exploiting Convict Labor, Convict Labor in State Prisons, Farm, Road and Construction Work, Local and County Convict Work, Systems of Employing Prisoners, Prison-Made Commodities, “Manufacturers” of Prison Goods, Marketing Convict-Made Goods, Competition with “Free Labor,” IV) “Making Good Citizens”, Prison Wages, Accidents and Occupational Diseases, Hours and Tasks, Punishment, Prison “Home” Life, Strait-Jacket and Other Tortures, Young Convict Workers, Revolts and Struggles Against Prison Labor, Struggles in 1931-32, V) The Chain Gang, The Guards Are Killers, Man Hunting, Chain Gang Tortures, A Few Killings, Prison Farm Tortures, VI) Peonage, What Is Peonage?, Peonage Is Legalized, Emigrant Agency Law, “Jumping Contract” Law, VII) Peonage Exposed, Catastrophes Expose Peonage, Other Recent Peonage Cases, Peonage on Government Job, Rebellion and Struggle, Peonage Among Mexicans in the United States, VIII) Forced Labor in the Colonies, Products of Forced Labor, Forced Labor in the West Indies, Imported Forced Labor in Cuba, in Black Haiti, in Central America, Peonage in Guatemala, Liberia a Rubber Colony, Contract Labor in Hawaii, Peonage in the Philippines, Struggles Against Forced Labor in the Colonies, IX) “Forced Labor” in the Soviet Union, Who Charges Soviet Forced Labor?, Some of the Charges, the Answer to the Charges, Americans Also Deny Forced Labor Charges, Labor Turnover and the Labor Code, More About Soviet Timber, the Kulaks and Forced Labor, the Status of Soviet Convict Labor, Socialist Labor vs. Capitalist Labor, Increasing Production, Socialist Competition and Shock Brigades, Soviet Labor Unions, Hours Wages and Social Insurance, Education and Culture, X) Summary and Conclusion, Reference Notes, Index. 192 pages.

The Labor Research Association was established in 1927 by CP publisher Alexander Trachtenberg “to conduct research into economic, social, and political problems in the interest of the American labor movement and to publish its findings in articles, pamphlets and books.” Rand School of Social Science veterans Scott Nearing, Solon De Leon, and Robert W Dunn along with Communist writers and labor researchers Grace Hutchins and Anna Rochester were its leading early members. Known for its Labor Fact Book almanac, published by International Publishers from 1933, the LRA has produced a number of invaluable texts for researchers and activists of the US labor movement.

PDF of full book: https://archive.org/download/forcedlaborinuni00wilsrich/forcedlaborinuni00wilsrich.pdf