“The International Workingmen’s Association in the United States and the ‘Social Question’ in the Nineteenth Century”

March 19, 2021
3:30pm EST
Via Zoom

Dr. Pamela Nogales
“The International Workingmen’s Association in the United States and the ‘Social Question’ in the Nineteenth Century”

Pamela Nogales is a historian and cultural critic who writes about social reform and popular culture. She received her PhD from New York University in 2020.

Dr. Nogales’s paper interprets the history of International Workingmen’s Association (IWMA) during its brief life in the United States, from 1869 until the organization’s dissolution in 1876. It offers an interpretation of the organization’s competing ideological factions and the split between democratic reformers and socialists in the United States.

In her paper, she discusses the ideological differences within Sections in relation to the mission of the IWMA and argues that the dynamic transformation of political traditions in the United States was a key feature of American reform. In other words, she argues, there was no static “Jeffersonian” tradition in the second half of the nineteenth century, nor was there a static social-democratic tradition in Europe. The interaction and moments of convergence between these traditions within the cosmopolitan context of the IWMA remains central to the story of the American Sections.

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