Researching Louis Pios American Dream at Northwestern University

Between 1872 and 1894, Danish-born labor leader Louis Pio was in the midst of the world's most important class-based conflicts (e.g. the 1886 Haymarket Affair which led to the 1st of May International Workers' Day) and organized a Scandinavian Knights of Labor chapter in Chicago to bridge traditional class, race, and gender divides. Yet, by the 1890s the Knights of Labor had all but vanished and labor leaders such as Pio were increasingly engaged in exclusionary racial practices in America. "Transplanting Socialism" examines this shift based on a hypothesis that Danish socialists like Pio arrived in the United States convinced that international solidarity held the key to remaking the world, but found themselves shackled to - and ultimately remade by - American ideas of white supremacy.