Shaping the right to work: The Cecil B. Demille Foundation's role in state and national Right to Work campaigns

This dissertation explores how Right to Work advocacy groups, as part of a backlash against the New Deal and its protections for labor unions, shaped modern conservatism. Using the DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom as a focal point, I argue that business conservatives opposed to the New Deal's protections for labor drew on longstanding arguments for the open shop, tailoring them for the political moment by focusing on unions' political power and potential for corruption, broadly defined. The DeMille Foundation used these themes of political unionism and corruption, combined with appeals to notions of individual liberty and the importance of free enterprise, to forward its agenda of outlawing the closed shop, first by advocating amendments to the Wagner Act and then by campaigning for state Right to Work laws.;This dissertation is situated at the intersection of policy history, business history, and the history of conservatism. As such it highlights the symbiotic role of business organizations and single-issue organizations in articulating ideologies that, in turn form one basis for popular appeals and policy decisions. I argue that the DeMille Foundation was uniquely situated to reframe what had been the cause of some conservative businessmen as a seemingly grassroots movement to outlaw closed shop contracts in the name of individual freedom. The organizing strategy it developed, which centered on fostering public support for ballot initiatives, combined the financial resources of big business with the local activism and community ties of small businessmen and farm groups. The DeMille Foundation played an important role in transforming what had traditionally been a big business issue into a popular cause.