Epilogue

This epilogue reflects on the legacy of Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway. It begins with a discussion of some valuable insights that the two men's experience provides. As far back as the 1960s, Gibbons and Calloway lamented the stagnation of union organizing amid structural changes in the economy that were diluting labor's strength. They thought creatively about how the Teamsters could exercise decisive economic leverage, and their concept of treating workers as total persons might find new political resonance in tackling the work–family divide that has arisen as dual earner families have become a social norm. The epilogue also considers several sobering aspects of Gibbons and Calloway's careers, including the short-lived successes of total person unionism as well as its limited reach, both within St. Louis and elsewhere. Finally, it suggests that Gibbons and Calloway's most powerful legacy was their insistence on the essential interrelationships between work, citizenship, and democracy.