Still Potentially Dangerous in Some Quarters
The charges that led Gen. John L. DeWitt to deport Sylvester Andriano from the Western
Defense Region in 1942 were bogus, the product of an anti-Catholic campaign by
Communist Party activists, Masonic anti-Catholics in the Italian community, and
recent Italian anti-Fascist exiles (fuorusciti). This wartime abuse of civil rights in
the name of national security grew from a discourse of demonizing the religious, not
solely the racial and ethnic, Other. The article makes several arguments about ethnicity
and religion on the Pacific Coast: Faith-based political activism played a significant
role in the region9s urban political culture, as did cultural politics between
Catholics and anti-Catholics. Irish American Catholic clergy welcomed, rather than
excluded, Italian American laymen into the Church9s highest councils in San Francisco,
where the Irish had long dominated civic life. However, Italian Americans were
bitterly divided between devout Catholics and disaffected anti-clericals.
Jack B. Tenney and the "Parasitic Menace": Anti-Communist Legislation in California 1940-1949
D URING THE 1940s California experienced a persistent antisubversive campaign, particularly in the state legislature. Frustration with general political and economic conditions in California and the United States, individual political and social aspirations, and a general distrust of anything foreign fostered the efforts of citizen and government groups to eliminate anti-American activities. Throughout World War II, California's long coastline and the large number of Japanese Americans living in the state accentuated fears concerning alien ideas and undesirable residents. For some citizens and certain legislators, Communism constituted the greatest foreign threat to the country's institutions and security. Many politicians, not only in California but also throughout the United States, found the issue of Communism in American society and government a popular and successful campaign weapon.'
Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930
This book presents the legal and business history of corporate ownership of employee knowledge. Skilled workers of the early nineteenth century enjoyed a degree of professional independence because workplace knowledge and technical skill were their 'property,' or at least their attribute. In most sectors of today's economy, however, it is a foundational and widely accepted truth that businesses retain legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property. In "Working Knowledge", Catherine Fisk chronicles the legal and social transformations that led to the transfer of ownership of employee innovation from labor to management. This deeply contested development was won at the expense of workers' entrepreneurial independence and ultimately, Fisk argues, economic democracy. By reviewing judicial decisions and legal scholarship on all aspects of employee-generated intellectual property and combing the archives of major nineteenth-century intellectual property - producing companies - including DuPont, Rand McNally, and the American Tobacco Company - Fisk makes a highly technical area of law accessible to general readers while also addressing scholarly deficiencies in the histories of labor, intellectual property, and the business of technology.