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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
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

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

The Making of the Springfield Working Class

Each generation of this country’s workforce has always been urged to detest the next—to come up with its own fantasies of cat-eating immigrants.
by Gabriel Winant via New York Review of Books on September 30, 2024
Battleship NEW YORK at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard dry dock, Bremerton, Washington, 1914
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Postcolonial Pacific: The Story of Philippine Seattle

The growth of Seattle in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is inseparable from the arrival of laborers from the US-colonized Philippines.
by H. M. A. Leow, Dorothy Fujita-Rony via JSTOR Daily on September 29, 2024
Samuel Gompers giving a speech in front of a crowd with his arms open wide.

A Return to Gompers

Samuel Gompers, the Teamsters at the Republican National Convention, and where unions fit into party politics.
by Dustin Guastella via Jacobin on September 27, 2024
"Winter Scene in Brooklyn," 1820 painting by Francis Guy.

How Brooklyn’s Earliest Black Residents Found Empowerment and Solidarity in Their Diverse Community

The little known history of 19th-century New York City.
by Prithi Kanakamedala via Literary Hub on September 18, 2024
Aerial photo of housing projects in the Bronx.

Suffering, Grace and Redemption: How The Bronx Came to Be

On the early history of New York City's northernmost borough.
by Ian Frazier via Literary Hub on September 6, 2024
1950s office worker holding a handkerchief to his brow.

How Air Conditioning Took Over the American Office

Before AC, office workers relied on building design to adapt to high temperatures. The promise of boosted productivity created a different kind of workplace.
by David Dudley via CityLab on September 3, 2024
Drawing showing teacher in front of the blackboard while students look bored in the back of the classroom.

Why Professors Can’t Teach

For as long as universities have existed, academics have struggled to impart their knowledge to students. The failing is fixable—if Washington demands it.
by Jonathan Zimmerman via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024
A crystal ball reflecting a landscape.

50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974

A half-century ago, "Saturday Review" asked some of the era's visionaries for their predictions of what 2024 would look like. Here are their hits and misses.
by David Cassel via The New Stack on August 24, 2024
Day laborer pumping up tire on tractor on large farm near Ralls, Texas, 1939.
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Stories of the Land: Diverse Agricultural Histories in the U.S.

An exhibit featuring public radio and television programs broadcast over 65 years that explore American agricultural life.
by Mariah E. Marsden via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on July 29, 2024
Factory cloth samples.

Chinese Production, American Consumption

The convergence of economy and politics in the Sino-US relationship via Jonathan Chatwin’s “The Southern Tour” and Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson’s “Made in China.”
by Kate Merkel-Hess via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 28, 2024
Textile workers in Massachusetts Striking for Wages.

Forces of Labor: The Minimum Wage

The federal minimum wage has not risen in over 15 years. We analyze why.
by Esha Krishnaswamy via Historic.ly on July 26, 2024
General president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O'Brien speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024.

A Return to Gompers

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?
by Dustin Guastella via Jacobin on July 17, 2024
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