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
Labor historians in the United States and Canada often rely on familiar sources, union and company records, newspapers and oral interviews, to name a few. The Moving Past: A Collection of Archival Film is an invitation to consider another source
David M. Emmons’ provocative new book History’s Erratics: Irish Catholic Dissidents and the Transformation of American Capitalism, 1870-1930 deploys a wealth of theory and decades of research to reframe our understanding of the Irish Catholic working class. The term erratics,
Jesse Chanin’s book Building Power, Breaking Power: The United Teachers of New Orleans, 1965-2008, published earlier this year, tells the remarkable story of the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO), a teachers union that defied expectations, labor factionalism, and racial
Over the first three decades of the 20th century, Minneapolis was the most notorious “open shop” city in the country. An employers’ organization (the “Citizens’ Alliance”) leveraged the power of banks, manufacturers, and local government to resist workers’ attempts to unionize.
HS: It is an honor to be asked by Professor Rosemary Feurer of LaborOnline to interview Robert W. Cherny about his monumental 2023 biography of Harry Bridges. Dr. Cherny has written seven books in American history. He is emeritus professor
The current issue of Civil War History should be of interest to labor historians. Civil War History has generously allowed posting of my introduction, as guest editor, of this September 2024 issue. Last year, there was only one or two
A much-overlooked part of the rise of the Communist Party as the leading Left organization in the mid twentieth century is that it produced a robust network of schools for workers. An overview of these schools conveys the effort to
Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend by Robert W. ChernyRobert W. Cherny’s new book, Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend (University of Illinois Press, 2023) is a monumental achievement. More than thirty-five years in the making, it is exhaustively researched,
In fall 1936, the Chicago Public Library initiated the Chicago Foreign-Language Press Survey, with funding from the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of the New Deal programs designed to provide unemployment relief and support engagement in cultural production. Over