On June 17, 2025, an official Illinois historical marker that highlights the experiences and activism of Black coal miners in Illinois was dedicated at the Springfield Transportation Hub, on the southwest corner of 11th and Washington streets in Springfield, Illinois.
Back By Robyn MuncyProfessor of History, University of Maryland, College Park Between the 1870s and 1920s, American women increasingly entered the paid laborforce. They did so overwhelmingly because of economic need, and they were able to do so because the US
In his recent executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Donald Trump criticized historians for “replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” In a subsequent order he called for the elimination
Dana Frank’s What Can We Learn From the Great Depression: Stories of Ordinary People & Collective Action in Hard Times shares four Great Depression episodes that dramatically and poignantly show how ordinary working people responded to the ongoing crisis by
“When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,But the union makes us strong.Solidarity forever!
by Kathy M. Newman; Joseph Entin; Patricia HillsPhilip Tipperman: Forgotten Labor Painter of the 1930sThe cover of the newly designed Labor: Studies in Working Class HIstory features the art of Philip Tipperman“Philip Tipperman: Forgotten Labor Painter of the 1930s” is
Sean Griffin, The Root and the Branch (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024)The Root and the Branch: Working Class Reform and Antislavery, 1790-1860 conveys the robust influence of labor reform and antislavery ideas and movements on each other from the early
Coauthored by Michael Hillard and Chad PearsonThe theme of the 2025 Business History Conference (BHC) was “The Business of Labor.” (Held in Atlanta, Georgia, from March 13-16). BHC in its annual gathering has long been open to scholars interested in
Labor Power and Strategy (PM Press, 2023)John Womack Jr.’s Labor Power and Strategy, published by PM Press in 2023, offers a blueprint for how workers can leverage their latent power and expand the labor movement’s influence and numbers. The book
Alan Singer’s new book excavates the Central Pennsylvania miners as they struggled at multiple levels: against mechanization, for democracy in their union, the United Mine Workers of America. Singer tracks them as fought open shop drives, attempted to bring a