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A horse hitched to a dairy wagon in Madison, WI.

The Rise and Demise of Equine “Cyborg” Labor

Archives from Madison, Wisconsin show the role of mechanized horses, or equine "cyborg" labor, in the growth of U.S. cities.
by Bri Meyer via Edge Effects on October 2, 2025
Diagram of a movement experiment studying abnormalities in walking

The Making of the American Culture of Work

Building the assumption of work’s meaningfulness happened across many different institutions and types of media.
by Max L. Chapnick via Commonplace on April 22, 2025
Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention.
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Michelle Obama Was Right to Clap Back at Trump on 'Black Jobs'

The idea of "Black jobs" owes to 18th and 19th century divisions of labor designed to uphold slavery and white supremacy.
by Whitney Nell Stewart via Made By History on August 28, 2024
Crowd marches against high inflation and unemployment in 1973.

What Would Studs Terkel Make of 'Essential Workers'?

What American workers have lost since 1974 — and how some are getting it back.
by Robert Hennelly via Village Voice on August 9, 2024
Illustration of a man typing on his laptop on a rollercoaster ride.

Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
by Erik Baker via The New Yorker on May 1, 2024
Lebanese auto worker Eva Habib in her work coveralls in 1929.

Arab American Labor

On the centrality of the working classes to the Arab American immigrant experience and the pivotal roles Arab Americans played in American labor.
by Akram Khater, Chelsea Lundquist-Wentz, Nicole Ackman, Ginni Leeman, Lindsey Waldenberg via Khayrallah Center For Lebanese Diaspora Studies on September 4, 2023
Painting of a young boy working as an apprentice, wearing an apron

How Long Did the School Year Last in Early America?

Even throwing off of a colonial power, representative institutions, Protestantism, and local autonomy in school decisions did not produce an egalitarian system.
by Carole Shammas via Cambridge Core Blog on June 12, 2023
Scientists carrying a log by using straps around their heads.

1,000 Years Ago, Ancient Puebloans Built a Mysteriously Vast City. We May Finally Know How.

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.
by Carly Cassella via ScienceAlert on February 27, 2023
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln Is a Hero of the Left

Leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who helped vanquish chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today within the radical democratic tradition.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on February 20, 2023
An public work space

The Idea of Work, From Below

Ideas about working from the employee perspective.
by Joel Suarez via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on September 6, 2021
A temporary writing.

The Once and Future Temp

What can the history of the temp-work industry teach us about the precarity of modern working life?
by Eve Zelickson via Public Books on August 27, 2021
John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.
by Jake Maynard via Current Affairs on July 6, 2021
Newsies smoking at Skeeter's Branch.

Lewis Hine, Photographer of the American Working Class

Lewis Hine captured the misery, dignity, and occasional bursts of solidarity within US working-class life in the early twentieth century.
by Billy Anania via Jacobin on June 8, 2021
Galveston Central Wharf in 1861

Granger’s Juneteenth Orders and the Limiting of Freedom

To what extent did the Union general's famous orders actually liberate the enslaved in Texas?
by Edward S. Alexander via Emerging Civil War on June 23, 2020
Men observing teams of horses and mules.

Andrew Jackson and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

How the so-called champion of the common man set a precedent for using federal troops to quash labor unrest.
by Joshua D. Rothman via We're History on January 29, 2019

Factory Made

A history of modernity as a history of factories struggles to see beyond their walls.
by Padraic X. Scanlan via The New Inquiry on March 30, 2018
Teachers and their supporters picketing.
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The Media Still Gets the Working Class Wrong — But Not in the Way You Think.

The U.S. working class is tremendously diverse — and growing in strength.
by Lane Windham via Made By History on September 3, 2017

Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party?

Historian Judith Stein debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.
by Judith Stein, Connor Kilpatrick via Jacobin on September 6, 2016
An oil rig sprays crude oil into the air.
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Voices from the Oilfields

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.
via BackStory on January 9, 2015

The Bisbee Deportation of 1917

It had not only a pivotal effect in Arizona's own labor history, but also on labor activity throughout the country.
by Sheila Bonnand via University of Arizona Library on January 1, 1997
Photo of Black woman and boy posing with a car packed with their belongings during the Great Migration.

The Hosts of Black Labor

The South must reform its attitude toward the Negro. The North must reform its attitude toward common labor. 
by W.E.B. Du Bois via The Nation on May 9, 1923
A reenactor portraying a British soldier at Fort Ticonderoga.

You Have No Idea How Hard It Is to Be a Reenactor

Benedict Arnold’s boot wouldn’t come off, and other hardships from my weekend in the Revolutionary War.
by Caity Weaver via The Atlantic on October 8, 2025

America’s Greatest Mistake

Globalization left millions behind as a policy and transformed the world politically, a new book argues.
by Siddhartha Mahanta via The American Prospect on October 3, 2025
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy receives an honorary diploma from George Boas during 1951 commencement ceremony.
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The Real History of Tenure

Tenure is more than just academic freedom; it is also about labor protection, and it has a long history.
by Deepa Das Acevedo via Made By History on October 1, 2025
An anti-capitalist political cartoon depicting a capitalist rhinoceros blocking the tracks for a train of the people.

How Capitalism Survives

According to John Cassidy’s century-spanning history "Capitalism and Its Critics," the system lives on because of its antagonists.
by Erik Baker via The Nation on September 24, 2025
Four men model two-button suits of 1963 Paris.

The Economic, Political, and Cultural History of Menswear

Where Western men’s clothing traditions came from, how they have evolved, and how they're being continually reinterpreted.
by Derek Guy, Dennis M. Hogan via Jacobin on September 18, 2025
Apple Company store in Chongqing, China.

How American Tech Made China an Economic Superpower

"Apple in China" tells the incredible story of China’s industrial development through the lens of America’s most iconic tech giant.
by Daniel Cheng via Damage on September 9, 2025
A Farm Security Administration representative visits Seabrook Farms in New Jersey in May 1938.

Destiny of the Dispossessed Spinach Prince

John Seabrook’s history of Seabrook Farms, where many incarcerated Japanese Americans worked during WWII, is ultimately about fathers and sons.
by Nick Ripatrazone via The Bulwark on July 25, 2025
New York skyline viewed from the top of the Woolworth building, 1913.

A Brief History of New York’s First Great Architectural Firm

On the eccentric, creative minds behind McKim, Meade and White.
by Henry Wiencek via Literary Hub on July 22, 2025
A former coal miner works at a computer station at the Bit Source LLC office in Pikeville, Kentucky

The Rise and Fall of the Knowledge Worker

Knowledge workers, were supposed to be the beneficiaries of neoliberalism and globalization until AI and a hypercompetitive employment market.
by Vinit Ravishankar, Mostafa Abdou via Jacobin on July 10, 2025
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