Labor History (U.S. history)

Putting Haymarket to Rest?

by lara kelland

Port Huron at Fifty: The New Left and Labor: An Interview with Kim Moody

by Christopher Phelps

Published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Volume 9, Issue 2 (summer 2012): 25-46.

This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns... more This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns Hopkins University student, illuminates the early history of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), especially the neglected labor-related portions of The Port Huron Statement, one of the most influential manifestos of the sixties radicalization. In a wide-ranging discussion on labor and the New Left, Moody explains the different views of labor represented at Port Huron, appraises individual thinkers such as Tom Hayden and C. Wright Mills, and explores topics such as the meaning of participatory democracy, the politics of labor in the 1960s, class relations in the civil rights movement, the SDS economic and research action projects, and the general relationship between organized labor and the New Left.

"Brothers, Come North: The Rural South and the Political Imaginary of New Negro Radicalism, 1917-1923."

by Alec Fazackerley Hickmott

Intellectual History Review 21(4) 2011: 395-412

Remembering and forgetting the Great War in New York City

by Ross Wilson

First World War Studies Volume 3, Issue 1, 2012, p.87-106

This article examines the history of the Great War in New York City and the means by which it has been remembered and... more This article examines the history of the Great War in New York City and the means by which it has been remembered and forgotten through the presence and absence of war memorials. New York City played a unique role in the history of the Great War, contributing to the war effort even before the declaration of war by the United States in 1917. The wartime experiences in the city were accompanied by political and racial tensions as fears of foreign influences undermining the city and the wider nation were ever-present. In a city which had witnessed large-scale immigration over the preceding century, fears of unrest or unpatriotic and un-American behaviour preoccupied both the city and the federal government. Nevertheless, the wartime contribution of the city's foreign-born residents was substantial as large numbers registered for military service. As a means of reaffirming the principles of patriotism and an ‘American’ identity for the city, after the Armistice the official bodies and veterans groups worked to develop a singular expression or ‘spirit’ for the local war memorials. As the schemes for a central war memorial for the city floundered, the local memorials served as a means for residents to adopt and adapt this hegemonic expression of ‘American’ identity and form specific memories of the war for each community.

The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall H. & Paul Reckner
2002 The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle. Historical Archaeology 36(3):44-58.

A gang of historians has gunned down the "romantic West." They have dismissed the notion of the West as a... more A gang of historians has gunned down the "romantic West." They have dismissed the notion of the West as a frontier of opportunity for all comers. The American West has been redefined as an arena of struggle involving complex relations of class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Western work camps and company towns existed as extensions of a global economy centered on the eastern United States. From the mid-19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, capital and people flowed into the West from Europe, Asia, and Mexico. In this internal periphery of U.S. capitalism, workers experienced the same type of exploitation and engaged in the same struggles as their brethren in other parts of the United States. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the coalfields of Colorado. The work camps and company towns that archaeologists excavate were loci of struggle, and historians cannot claim to understand them without considering these conflicts.

Deskilling on the Disassembly Line: Technological Change and Its Consequences in Beef-Packing Since the 1960s

by Chris Wright

In this paper I trace the outlines of the history of technological innovation in the U.S.’s beef-packing industry from... more In this paper I trace the outlines of the history of technological innovation in the U.S.’s beef-packing industry from approximately the 1960s to the present, focusing on mechanization and automation in the slaughter process. I consider when and why particular innovations were introduced and what effects they had on work, workers’ satisfaction, and workers’ safety. To what extent have employees and unions mobilized against increased mechanization, and to what extent has technological advance deskilled and degraded -- or, alternatively, improved the conditions of -- work in the “disassembly” line in beef-packing plants? My argument is in broad accord with Harry Braverman’s in his classic study "Labor and Monopoly Capital" (1974), according to which capitalist production relations have driven a process of relentless deskilling and automation. However, I complicate his story a little, arguing that technological advance has not been solely to the detriment of workers.

Evolution of an Emblem: The Arm and Hammer

by Kim Munson

Draft only

How did such an ubiquitous symbol of the national labor movement become known only as a logo for baking soda? Is it... more How did such an ubiquitous symbol of the national labor movement become known only as a logo for baking soda? Is it really named after industrialist Armand Hammer (NO)? This paper explores the use and origins of the Arm & Hammer emblem, from its roots in Greco-Roman myth, to the trade guilds of London, Mechanics Societies in the US, the Socialist Labor Party, and of course, Church and Dwight, owners of the Arm & Hammer trademark.

The author has not yet performed a permissions search on these images. This paper is posted for academic purposes only.

Kim has presented on this topic at the Labor Archives and Research Center (SFSU) and at the SWTX PCA/ACA conference in 2010. See the powerpoint at http://www.slideshare.net/kim_munson

The Strike Imagined: The Atlantic and Interpretive Voyages of Robert Koehler’s Painting The Strike

by Christopher Phelps

Journal of American History, 98:3, 670-98.

Labor historians have long explored aspects of working-class culture ranging from religion to ethnicity, and cultural... more Labor historians have long explored aspects of working-class culture ranging from religion to ethnicity, and cultural and intellectual historians have begun to trace themes of labor and class in American literature and thought. Christopher Phelps asserts that a more intensive and fruitful rapprochement of intellectual and labor history is revealed by the story of Robert Koehler’s 1886 painting The Strike. The work of a Milwaukee-educated German American inspired by the Pittsburgh strike of 1877, The Strike was completed in Munich based on sketches made in England, unveiled in New York and honored in Paris, and crisscrossed the Atlantic in both its conceptualization and audiences. The reception of the painting reflected, Phelps argues, the nexus of modern liberal beliefs about labor in the epoch of rapidly industrializing capitalism and, after a long lapse into obscurity, the radicalism of the 1960s in the moment of its rediscovery.

Teacher Unions (Battleground Schools, 2008)

by E. Wayne Ross

Ross, E. W. (2008). Teacher unions. In S. Mathison & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Battleground schools (pp. 628-638). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

'Manliness is the Backbone of Our Nature': Masculinity and Class Identity among Nineteenth-Century Railroad Workers in West Oakland, California

by Mark Walker

Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Vol. 25, 2011

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, changing, and sometimes conflicting, ideas of masculinity played... more Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, changing, and sometimes conflicting, ideas of masculinity played out in how working class men formed common identities among themselves, and how they interacted with others, on both the shop floor and in their neighborhoods and homes. These gendered identities form a basis for both solidarity and exclusion. In this paper I consider the relationship between gender and class identities in the  late nineteenth-century  U.S., focusing on skilled male railroad workers in West Oakland, in the San Francisco Bay area of California. During this period the craft unions to which these workers belonged articulated a vision of “respectable masculinity” for their members that was intended to replace prevailing notions of masculinity centered on homosociality and hard drinking. This paper examines the impact of these conflicting visions.

Sensing Class: Religion, Aesthetics, and Formations of Class in Eastern Kentucky's Coal Fields

by Richard Callahan

in Sean McCloud and William Mirola, eds., Religion and Class in America: Culture, History, and Politics. (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 175-196.

“Back to Harlem: Abstract and Everyday Labor during the ‘Harlem Renaissance’” in The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters, ed. Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 74-90.

by Jacob Dorman

Part of a planned future project on the social history of Harlem during the New Negro Renaissance.

Examining everyday life and work patterns in 1920s Harlem illustrates that the abstracted Harlem of the literary... more Examining everyday life and work patterns in 1920s Harlem illustrates that the abstracted Harlem of the literary imagination is an inadequate replacement for the knowledge of Harlem to be gleaned through social history. Harlem's black workers inspired and helped create the abstraction of Harlem, but discrimination prevented them from earning their due. In theoretical terms, one could say that their labor never became fully abstracted. Whereas the abstract image of Harlem became a commodity to be sold in the primary market of publishing and the secondary market of academe, laboring Harlemites were unable to receive adequate compensation for their labors, cultural and or otherwise. And so living in Harlem not only systematically impoverished them, but in so doing distanced them from the abstraction of Harlem that was their original creation. Yet it is the abstract Harlem, and not the street-level version of living laborers, that which has come to stretch its mantle across the entire era of the "Harlem Renaissance." A close examination of the working life of 1920s Harlemites both retrieves and destroys different versions of Harlem: bringing into focus Harlem at the level of lived experience makes it clear that the "Harlem" in the name of the designation "Harlem Renaissance" is not a place but is rather rather is a symbolic abstraction. Appreciating this duality allows us to have our "Harlem Renaissance" and understand Harlem, too.

Dying to be a Carpenter: Life and Death in McCarron's Carpenters Union

by David Correia

January 26, 2011 edition of CounterPunch

"Upon this (foundering) rock": Minneapolis Teamsters and the Transformation of U.S. Business Unionism, 1934-1941

by Barry Eidlin

Published in Labor History, Vol. 50 No. 3, 249-267

This article examines an understudied consequence of the labor upsurge of the 1930s – namely, the way in which the... more This article examines an understudied consequence of the labor upsurge of the 1930s – namely, the way in which the conflict between conservative business unionism and more radical alternatives of the period fundamentally transformed business unionism itself. The author illustrates this through a case study of the struggle within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) between the business unionist leadership and an insurgent movement spearheaded by the Trotskyist leaders of Minneapolis Local 544. In order to defeat the insurgents, the IBT leadership violated their commitment to anti-statist voluntarism, using newly enacted labor policies to mobilize coercive state power in their favor. This episode foreshadowed expanded state intervention in union affairs in the post-war period and marked the ascendancy of a new model of industrial business unionism. The latter blended innovative tactics borrowed from radical challengers with the narrow economism and political conservatism of its craft business unionist forebears.

The Wisconsin Idea

by Christopher Phelps

Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 March 2011

Review of Genora Johnson Dollinger 'Striking Flint'

by Christopher Phelps

Labour / Le Travail (Spring 1998): 286-288.

Regarding sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan Regarding sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan

American Idle

by Christopher Phelps

The Nation (21 Jan. 2010)

An examination of the small American Midwestern town of Mansfield, Ohio, as it confronts the closure of a General... more An examination of the small American Midwestern town of Mansfield, Ohio, as it confronts the closure of a General Motors plant in the middle of the Great Recession

Chicago Factory Sit-In Fits National Mood

by Christopher Phelps

Co-authored with Nelson Lichtenstein, CNN.com (8 Dec. 2008)

Slave Hiring, Gendered Divisions of Labor, and Female Domestics in Central Missouri, 1821-1861

by Kristen Epps

This paper examines the relationship between slave-hiring practices and gendered assumptions about male and female... more This paper examines the relationship between slave-hiring practices and gendered assumptions about male and female labor, focusing particularly on central Missouri during the antebellum period.  I argue that the popularity and availability of female domestics on the slave-hiring market raises profound questions about the unique benefits of female slave labor.  While the field labor of male slaves made a noticeable contribution to the status and wealth of their owner or temporary master, often a female slave domestic’s labor contributed little to their master’s economic solvency.  So why then, was the hiring of slave women as popular, if not more popular, than that of male slaves?  I contend that white mistresses in particular were keen on improving their social standing, seeing the addition of a female domestic to their work force as a means of lightening their own workload and adopting a managerial role.  Frequently for non-slaveholding families who lacked the means to purchase a slave, hiring provided them with passage—albeit fleeting passage—into the class of slaveholders.  Thus, slave hiring brought issues of race, gender and class together to form an intricate web of social relations.