BAE, Youngsoo 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born February 26, 1953, in Chinhae, South Korea; son of Yimoon Bae (a tailor) and Sooyun Choi (a homemaker); married Nanhee Shin (a fine-arts teacher), November 19, 1978; children: Youngjae, Minjae. Ethnicity: "Korean." Education: Seoul National University, B.A., 1976, M.A., 1978; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1989. Religion: Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hyundae Apt. No. 301-408, Bongchon-dong 1713, Kwanak-ku, Seoul, South Korea, 151-056. Office—Seoul National University, Department of Western History, Shinrim-dong, Kwanak-ku, Seoul, South Korea 151-742. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and historian. Korea Military Academy, Seoul, South Korea, history instructor, 1980-83; Seoul National University, assistant professor, 1989-93, associate professor, 1993-99, chair of department of Western history, 1995-97, professor of history, 1999—, Daehak Shinmoon (campus weekly), editor-in-chief, 2001-03, American Studies Institute, director, 2003—. Military service: South Korean Army, 1980-83; attained rank of first lieutenant.

MEMBER:

Korean Historical Association, Korean Western Historical Association, American Historical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Illinois State Historical Society Publications/Scholarly Award, 2002.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Lectures in the History of Western Civilizations (in Korean), Hanul Publishing (Seoul, South Korea), 1992, revised edition, 2000.

Labor in Retreat: Class and Community among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871-1929, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 2001.

Contributor of articles and reviews to Korean periodicals and anthologies.

TRANSLATOR INTO KOREAN

Melvyn Dubofsky, Industrialism and the American Workers, 1865-1920, Hanul Publishing (Seoul, South Korea), 1990.

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Saemulgyul Publishing House (Seoul, South Korea), 1999.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

A book, America As an Extreme, in Korean; research on the changing governance structure of modern business firms.

SIDELIGHTS:

Korean educator and historian Young-soo Bae is the author of several books in Korean that focus on the social history of American capitalism. His interest in labor history, in particular, arose during the early 1970s, while he was a student at Seoul National University. At that time, Bae explained to CA, "Koreans aspired to rapid industrialization, which was encouraged by the United States as the overwhelming influence over South Korea following World War II." Bae's first book written in English, 2001's Labor in Retreat: Class and Community among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871-1929, focuses on U.S. labor during a period of great flux: from the height of industrialization to the onset of the Great Depression.

In Labor in Retreat Bae argues that, in the years immediately following World War I, U.S. workers turned to business unionism even in the more forward-looking industrial trade unions such as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America because of what Business History reviewer Katrina Honeyman described as "the fragmentation of community among its composite ethnic groups" rather than the political and economic factors cited by most historians. In Chicago, in particular, garment workers from Russia, Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia were able to improve their standard of living to such an extent that within a generation workers and their families left the city's ethnic neighborhoods as they improved their economic status. As these workers became "fully involved in the capitalist economy," noted Michigan Historical Review contributor Octavia B. Ice, they lost "the bonds of community that encouraged immigrants to work together within their own neighborhoods and to organize along ethnic lines rather than by job function."

Ice praised Labor in Retreat as a volume that "helps to bridge the gap between social and labor history," and also praised the author for focusing on social rather than economic factors in his analysis. "The true freshness of this study is the probing of the formation of union bureaucracy," noted Richard A. Greenwald in Labor History, explaining that Bae's study of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America shows how that union gained in power due to its control of jobs via a centralized employment agency, thus making it "more immune from the communist revolts of the garment trades" during the 1920s. Ultimately, like the United Garment Workers, it had declined by the late 1920s due to apathy and loss of members. Also praising Bae for his worker-centered approach to unionism, Amy Foerster wrote in the American Journal of Sociology that Labor in Retreat contributes to the study of early twentieth-century unionism by portraying workers as "individuals grappling with conflicting cultures, interests, and goals" rather than as a homogeneous group; in this way Bae "strikes an interesting balance between structure and agency."

Bae told CA: "I write when I have something to say that is different from the existing views. In this sense, writing is part and parcel of the everyday dialogue that I have with other people. It is also the better way one can discuss sophisticated ideas with informed people. This is why my writings are chiefly addressed to the specialists in my field.

"My works are shaped to show where I am differing from those specialists and why. They are also pruned to reach a larger audience. In Korea, intellectuals are more interested in theory than history, with theoreticians often leading the academic discourse. When I write in Korean, I often take part in that discourse by taking up theoretical issues. A historian by training, however, I am more inclined to the narrative tradition, and look for an audience including general readers. I expect such an audience in the United States, which explains why I have occasionally written in English, my second language.

"I enjoy writing; it is an intensely engaging job that makes me feel exhausted in a few weeks. Composing is the most time-and energy-consuming process, in which I elaborate my ideas in detail and apply my literary skill as well. It is chiefly in this process that I remind myself of the work of my mentors, Bernard Bailyn and Stephan Thernstrom in particular. They continue to inspire my effort at refinement. Polishing is much easier to me, though I spend weeks waiting to be disengaged from the first draft and acquire a perspective on my own work. Yet it is as much enjoyable as composing, since it helps improve the quality of my ideas."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, March, 2002, Amy Foerster, review of Labor in Retreat: Class and Community among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871-1929, p. 1357.

Business History, summer, 2002, Jo Ann E. Argersinger, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 752; January, 2003, Katrina Honeyman, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 171.

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, July, 2002, Randi Storch, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 752.

Journal of American History, March, 2003, Xiaolan Bao, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 1554.

Journal of Economic History, March, 2002, Laura J. Owen, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 254.

Journal of Social History, summer, 2003, Liesl M. Orenic, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 1117.

Labor History, November, 2002, Richard A. Greenwald, review of Labor in Retreat, p. 572.

Michigan Historical Review, fall, 2002, Octavia B. Ice, p. 182.*