Ira Katznelson has proposed that we labor historians can recover our lost élan by engaging the agenda of liberalism. Although he acknowledges that today's writings on working-class history are variegated and richly rewarding, he regrets that they have become uncoupled from controversies over public policy and social change and run the risk of becoming little more than “sentimental reminders of times lost and aspirations disappointed.”To revitalize our sense of engagement he recommends that we call a halt to “the continuing flight within labor history from institutional-political analysis.” We should focus our attention on historical relationships between the state and civil society, and we should inform our analyses with the political theory that historically has assumed its shape around those relationships: liberalism.