This excellent, provocative work builds on the 1966 watershed article by Herbert Gutman, “Protestantism and the American Labor Movement” (The American Historical Review 72, no. 1 [1966]: 74–101). Gutman argued that historians should give greater attention to the contributions working people have made to important social movements, including the role religion played in shaping the contours of working class attitudes toward labor activism. The Pew and the Picket Line augments this thesis by utilizing nine local studies, reflecting a broad range of working class religious affiliations. Together, these essays create a mosaic of the considerable influence wielded by common folk on industrial and agricultural labor conditions from the antebellum period to the late twentieth century.

Editors Christopher Cantwell, Heath Carter, and Janine Giordano Drake provide an admirable introduction to the book. Tracing the exclusion of religious laity from the discussion of labor history to Marx, they summarize the contributions of scholars who have challenged that trend, such as Richard Niebuhr and Paul Boyer. Despite the contribution by a few scholars, most embraced the “deprivation theory,” which sees religion as a coping mechanism that counteracts the working class failure to achieve social voice. The editors challenge this view, maintaining that working people exerted much more influence than the depravation theory allows.

Part 1 includes five essays describing the ways working people have navigated “the space between the pew and the picket line” (11), thus significantly influencing U.S. history. Dan McKanan's chapter discusses nineteenth-century novelists George Lippard and Ignatius Donnally, who used esoteric motifs (highlighting the hidden meaning behind religious dogma and practice) to confront the clandestine capitalistic abuses of “scheming and rapacious bankers, lawyers, politicians, merchants, and Protestant clergy” (27). Donnally rejected Lippard's brotherhood as well as the more radical elements of Marxism, preferring the aims of Populism. Both novelists predated and influenced the Social Gospel Movement.

Evelyn Sterne and Jarod Roll provide perceptive chapters on Catholic labor in Rhode Island and mining interests in Kansas. Early twentieth-century Catholics found themselves excluded from the voting booth in Rhode Island despite their large numbers. Local parishes served as both an educational and politicizing agent for the disenfranchised, and these efforts led to improvement in working conditions and electoral access. Roll masterfully outlines the influence of Pentecostal leader Charles Fox Parham on the entrepreneurial labors of independent lead and zinc miners in Galena, Kansas. Parham's emphasis on miracles fueled the hopes of miners who retained their faith in entrepreneurial capitalism in an effort to strike it rich in risky mining environs. This chapter rightly suggests Parham's influence on the development of the “prosperity gospel.”

Part 1 ends with chapters on the Detroit Industry Mission (DIM) and black churches in post-industrial Cairo, Illinois in the 1950s and 1960s. Of particular interest is Matthew Pehl's contrast of the DIM and Presbyterian Industrial Project with the more effective efforts of “shop-floor preachers.” The leaders of the aforementioned groups were highly educated and middle-class, and they found difficult the diverse religious environment of the factory. Shop-floor preachers, especially African Americans, found a ready audience among the workers and encouraged union activism.

Kerry Pemblott explores the industrial collapse of Cairo during the Depression and the response of local pastors to the resulting economic decline. Baptist pastor Charles Koen helped establish community groups to combat racial violence and promote self-sufficient neighborhoods, reflecting his disillusionment with liberal integration models.

Part 2 deals with concrete examples of working class impact on industrial capitalism in the South, Southwest, and Chicago. Arlene Sanchez-Walsh chronicles the public life of San Antonio activist Emma Teneyuca, who organized the pecan sheller strike in the 1930s despite the opposition of the Catholic diocese and city officials fearful of incipient Communism. Deplorable living and working conditions for Tejanos were mirrored by poor wages—the Southern Pecan Shelling Company paid less than three dollars a week. Most religious organizations opposed the strike; yet, Teneyuca found support from some Jewish leaders and a small group of Pentecostal women.

Another example of African American religious activity is revealed in Alison Collis Greene's chapter on the Tyrell Credit Union in North Carolina in the 1940s. Discouraged by usurious banking practices, farmers struggled to earn a living and welcomed the aid of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen to create a credit union, led by S. P. Simpson. Mob violence and the eventual absence of Simpson led to the dissolution of the credit union; nevertheless, black activists continued the struggled for civil rights accompanied by necessary economic opportunity.

This work concludes with chapters on the “bracero program” and ecumenical activism in Chicago. Brett Hendrickson details the anguish of bracero workers in the Southwest, emphasizing the influence of Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and the work of Cesar Chavez. The bracero program allowed Mexican agricultural workers to enter the U.S. during the labor shortage of World War II, and this policy continued into the 1960s. Chavez, influenced by Catholic social teaching, responded by organizing the UFW. Hendrickson asserts that the pope's encyclical had profound effect on improved working conditions for migrant workers. The book concludes with Erik Gelman's chapter on the work of Reverend Archie Hargraves and the Urban Training Center for Christian Mission in Chicago.

The Pew and the Picket Line is a refreshing reminder of the importance of common folk religion, and this reviewer found each chapter thorough and informative. Though not an exhaustive study of the theme, it should engender future studies, and it will serve as a welcome introduction to this area of American religious and labor history. Perhaps it will inspire others, for instance, to explore more deeply the relationship between working people from traditional denominations, like Baptists and Methodists, and industrial labor. Also, this work should provoke scholars to explore the theological underpinnings of working-class activism.