author
Paul F. (Paul Frederick) Brissenden
1885–1974
A sharp-eyed labor historian, he is best remembered for exploring the Industrial Workers of the World and the tensions shaping early 20th-century labor politics. His work combines careful research with a clear interest in how workers, employers, and public policy collided.
1 Audiobook
The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism
by Paul F. (Paul Frederick) Brissenden
About the author
Born in Benzonia, Michigan, in 1885, Paul Frederick Brissenden became an American labor historian whose writing focused on major labor questions in the first half of the 20th century. Available reference sources describe him as especially known for The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism, a work that helped establish his reputation as a serious scholar of labor movements.
Records of his papers at Cornell University show the breadth of his interests beyond the I.W.W., including labor relations in Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand. Listings of his publications also point to a long research career that included studies of labor turnover, wage questions, injunctions, and industrial conflict.
Brissenden died in 1974. Even from the limited surviving biographical material that is easy to confirm online, he comes across as a writer deeply interested in how labor movements worked in practice, and in the institutions that shaped working life.