Dana Frank argues that Seattle's working people rode an unprecedented wave of power and control from the World War I boom economy to the early 1920s. During that era, not only did Seattle trade unions give some grudging limited support to unionization among women, African Americans, and Japanese Americans, they also sought to create a political economy controlled by and for the working class. Leaders of the Seattle Central Labor Council attempted to wield the "purchasing power" of union members to carry out consumer boycotts against "unfair" retailers in the city, to establish worker "owned" cooperative enterprises such as grocery and dry goods stores, barbershops, laundries, and theaters.