labor

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC may represent a return to nonpartisan realpolitik for unions. But does that reflect labor's strength or its decline?

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.

Even throwing off of a colonial power, representative institutions, Protestantism, and local autonomy in school decisions did not produce an egalitarian system.

High up on the Colorado Plateau, in what is today the state of New Mexico, sit the remains of what was once a city of epic proportions.

Leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who helped vanquish chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today within the radical democratic tradition.

Ideas about working from the employee perspective.

The 1963 March on Washington put a government guarantee to a job at the front of the civil rights agenda. It’s long past time to complete the work.

What can the history of the temp-work industry teach us about the precarity of modern working life?

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.

Lewis Hine captured the misery, dignity, and occasional bursts of solidarity within US working-class life in the early twentieth century.

To what extent did the Union general's famous orders actually liberate the enslaved in Texas?

How the so-called champion of the common man set a precedent for using federal troops to quash labor unrest.

A history of modernity as a history of factories struggles to see beyond their walls.

The U.S. working class is tremendously diverse — and growing in strength.

Historian Judith Stein debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.

Using oral histories of early East Texas oil workers, recorded in the 1950s, we hear about the chaos and excess that accompanied the discovery of oil.

It had not only a pivotal effect in Arizona's own labor history, but also on labor activity throughout the country.

The South must reform its attitude toward the Negro. The North must reform its attitude toward common labor. 

Despite its failures and limitations, the American Revolution unleashed popular aspirations to throw off tyranny of all kinds.

The hard labor behind what was once one of the nation's most significant industries.