About Us

LAWCHA is an organization of scholars, teachers, students, labor educators, and activists who seek to promote public and scholarly awareness of labor and working-class history through research, writing, and organizing.

News & Alerts More News | Contribute

Upcoming Events Past Events | Add Event

LaborOnline features short essays that discuss labor and working class history and its meaning for the present. We feature one essay from each issue of the quarterly journal, Labor: Studies in Working Class History. Contact editor Rosemary Feurer ([email protected]) if you have an idea or story for the blog. Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter, @LaborOnline! Subscribe to the LAWCHA RSS Feed!
William Riddell On the Waves of Empire

William D. Riddell On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924

Ian Rocksborough-Smith interviewed William D. Riddell about his new book On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2023. Set mainly in the years preceding and following the Spanish-American War (1898) through World War I (1914-1918) and its aftermath, the book looks especially at the experiences of merchant sailors, their unions, and their labor leaders to indicate how class conflict impacted America’s emergent 20th Century empire. Read more →

August 31st, 2023