Historian Carlos A. Schwantes studies the forces that shaped the history of the labor movement on either side of the forty-ninth parallel and the reason for the eventual demise of the socialist movement in Washington State and its continuing vigor in British Columbia.

Carlos A. Schwantes is a professor of history at the University of Idaho. His books include Coxey's Army: An American Odyssey (1985) and The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History (1989), both published by the University of Nebraska Press.