Labor History Archives in the United States


Book Description

"Introduction. 9. . Labor Archives and Collections in the United States. 12. . Labor Holdings at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. 18. . Labor Material in the Collections of the Museum of American Textile History. 27. . Labor History Sources at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 33. . The Connecticut Labor Archives. 41. . Sources for Business and Labor History in the Bridgeport Public Library. 46. . Labor History Resources at New York University. 50. 1.). The Tamiment Institute/ Ben Josephson Library. . 2.). The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. . . Labor Archives in the University at Albany, State University of New York. 61. . Sources on Labor History in the Martin P. Catherwood Library. 67. . Sources on Labor History at the Rockefeller Archive Center. 75. . Labor History Resources at the Rutgers University Libraries. 83. . Labor Collections at the Urban Archives Center, Temple University Libraries. 87. . Labor Archives at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 93. . Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Penn State University. 97. . The UE/Labor Archives, University of Pittsburgh. 102. . Labor History Sources in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. 105. . Labor History Sources in the National Archives. 114. . Labor and Social History Records at the Catholic University of America Nelson Lichtenstein. 121. . The Joseph A. Beirne Memorial Archives. 125. . Labor Union History and Archives: The University of Maryland at College Park Libraries. 129. . The George Meany Memorial Archives. 133. . West Virginia Labor Sources at the West Virginia and Regional History Collection. 140. . The Southern Labor Archives. 146. . Labor History Resources at the Ohio Historical Society. 155. . The Debs Collection at Indiana State University. 161. . The Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University. 167. . The Labadie Collection in the University of Michigan Library. 177. . Labor History Manuscripts in the Chicago Historical Society. 185. . The Ozarks Labor Union Archives at Southwest Missouri State University. 190. . Labor History Resources in the University of Iowa Libraries, the State Historical Society of Iowa/Iowa City, and the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. 195. . Sources for the Study of the Labor Movement at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 203. . The Immigration History Research Center as a Source for Labor History Research. 212. . Labor Collections in the Western Historical Collections, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 219. . Labor Resources at the Nevada State Library and Archives. 224. . The Texas Labor Archives. 229. . Sources on Labor History at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. 235. . The Urban Archives Center at California State University, Northridge. 240. . The Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University. 248. . Index. 257.




From Mission to Microchip


Book Description

There is no better time than now to consider the labor history of the Golden State. While other states face declining union enrollment rates and the rollback of workersÕ rights, California unions are embracing working immigrants, and voters are protecting core worker rights. WhatÕs the difference? California has held an exceptional place in the imagination of Americans and immigrants since the Gold Rush, which saw the first of many waves of working people moving to the state to find work. From Mission to Microchip unearths the hidden stories of these people throughout CaliforniaÕs history. The difficult task of the stateÕs labor movement has been to overcome perceived barriers such as race, national origin, and language to unite newcomers and natives in their shared interest. As chronicled in this comprehensive history, workers have creatively used collective bargaining, politics, strikes, and varied organizing strategies to find common ground among CaliforniaÕs diverse communities and achieve a measure of economic fairness and social justice. This is an indispensible book for students and scholars of labor history and history of the West, as well as labor activists and organizers.Ê




Chicano Communists and the Struggle for Social Justice


Book Description

In the 1930s and 1940s the early roots of the Chicano Movement took shape. Activists like Jesús Cruz, and later Ralph Cuarón, sought justice for miserable working conditions and the poor treatment of Mexican Americans and immigrants through protests and sit-ins. Lesser known is the influence that Communism and socialism had on the early roots of the Chicano Movement, a legacy that continues today. Examining the role of Mexican American working-class and radical labor activism in American history, Enrique M. Buelna focuses on the work of the radical Left, particularly the Communist Party (CP) USA. Buelna delves into the experiences of Cuarón, in particular, as well as those of his family. He writes about the family’s migration from Mexico; work in the mines in Morenci, Arizona; move to Los Angeles during the Great Depression; service in World War II; and experiences during the Cold War as a background to exploring the experiences of many Mexican Americans during this time period. The author follows the thread of radical activism and the depth of its influence on Mexican Americans struggling to achieve social justice and equality. The legacy of Cuarón and his comrades is significant to the Chicano Movement and in understanding the development of the labor and civil rights movements in the United States. Their contributions, in particular during the 1960s and 1970s, informed a new generation to demand an end to the Vietnam War and to expose educational inequality, poverty, civil rights abuses, and police brutality.




The United Brotherhood of Carpenters


Book Description

Historical account of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (trade union) in the USA, 1881 to 1981 - covers trade unionization, trade union structure and collective bargaining, demarcation disputes and other labour disputes, political ideology and management attitudes; notes successes in wage increases, reduced hours of work and the abolition of racial segregation.




Labor and the New Deal


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United Mine Workers Journal


Book Description




Making the Empire Work


Book Description

Millions of laborers, from the Philippines to the Caribbean, performed the work of the United States empire. Forging a global economy connecting the tropics to the industrial center, workers harvested sugar, cleaned hotel rooms, provided sexual favors, and filled military ranks. Placing working men and women at the center of the long history of the U.S. empire, these essays offer new stories of empire that intersect with the “grand narratives” of diplomatic affairs at the national and international levels. Missile defense, Cold War showdowns, development politics, military combat, tourism, and banana economics share something in common—they all have labor histories. This collection challenges historians to consider the labor that formed, worked, confronted, and rendered the U.S. empire visible. The U.S. empire is a project of global labor mobilization, coercive management, military presence, and forced cultural encounter. Together, the essays in this volume recognize the United States as a global imperial player whose systems of labor mobilization and migration stretched from Central America to West Africa to the United States itself. Workers are also the key actors in this volume. Their stories are multi-vocal, as workers sometimes defied the U.S. empire’s rhetoric of civilization, peace, and stability and at other times navigated its networks or benefited from its profits. Their experiences reveal the gulf between the American ‘denial of empire’ and the lived practice of management, resource exploitation, and military exigency. When historians place labor and working people at the center, empire appears as a central dynamic of U.S. history.




Solidarity and Survival


Book Description

In Solidarity and Survival, three generations of Iowa workers tell of their unrelenting efforts to create a labor movement in the coal mines and on the rails, in packinghouses and farm equipment plants, on construction sites and in hospital wards. Drawing on nearly one thousand interviews collected over more than a decade by oral historians working for the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Shelton Stromquist presents the resonant voices of the men and women who defined a new, prominent place for themselves in the lives of their communities and in the politics of their state.




American Labor and the Cold War


Book Description

The American labor movement seemed poised on the threshold of unparalleled success at the beginning of the post-World War II era. Fourteen million strong in 1946, unions represented thirty five percent of non-agricultural workers. Why then did the gains made between the 1930s and the end of the war produce so few results by the 1960s? This collection addresses the history of labor in the postwar years by exploring the impact of the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union on American workers and labor unions. The essays focus on the actual behavior of Americans in their diverse workplaces and communities during the Cold War. Where previous scholarship on labor and the Cold War has overemphasized the importance of the Communist Party, the automobile industry, and Hollywood, this book focuses on politically moderate, conservative workers and union leaders, the medium-sized cities that housed the majority of the population, and the Roman Catholic Church. These are all original essays that draw upon extensive archival research and some upon oral history sources.




From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend


Book Description

Newly updated: “An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history.” —The American Prospect Praised for its “impressive even-handedness”, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book “[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor”, enlivened by illustrations from the celebrated comics journalist Joe Sacco (Library Journal). Now, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor’s role in American life, with new material on sex workers, disability issues, labor’s relation to the global justice movement and the immigrants’ rights movement, the 2005 split in the AFL-CIO and the movement civil wars that followed, and the crucial emergence of worker centers and their relationships to unions. With two entirely new chapters—one on global developments such as offshoring and a second on the 2016 election and unions’ relationships to Trump—this is an “extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history [that] could become an evergreen . . . comparable to Howard Zinn’s award-winning A People’s History of the United States” (Publishers Weekly). “A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people.” —Noam Chomsky