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labor history

Articles tagged with this keyword discuss the study of labor history, and how research and writing about labor history have changed over time.
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David Montgomery in a picket line during a 1955 UE strike.

The People in the Shop

A new collection of essays by David Montgomery shows how he used labor history as a means of grappling with the largest questions in American history.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on December 17, 2024
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via n+1 on January 24, 2024
Striking workers at General Motors in 1970.

Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half-Century of American Class Struggle

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on July 10, 2023
Map of Jamaica.

Revisiting Restoration

Women’s economic labor was essential to state function.
by Jonah Estess via Commonplace on March 1, 2023

How Labor Scholars Missed the Trump Revolt

We thought we knew the white working class. Then 2016 happened.
by Jefferson Cowie via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 1, 2017
Image of where the rust belt is located on a US map

Economic Mobility, Not Manufacturing Decline, Is the Real Rust Belt Story

A look at popular interpretations and actual labor fluctuations in the Rust Belt over time.
by Norbert Michel, Jerome Famularo via Cato Institute on June 12, 2025
A group of women textile workers outside of their boarding house.

Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers

As vital to the success of industrial New England as the mill girls who toiled in the factories were the women who oversaw their lodging.
by Sarah Buchmeier via JSTOR Daily on April 2, 2025
A group of Transappalachain migrant workers in Department 312 of the Anderson Delco-Remy plant pose for a photograph in February 1953.

On the New Book, "Hillbilly Highway"

Recovering the long-overlooked significance of the “hillbilly highway” in the US, with implications for labor history as well as US history broadly.
by Max Fraser, Joseph Rathke via LaborOnline on December 15, 2023
Bud Schulberg testifying before HUAC.

During the 2023 Writers Strike, This Book Helped Me Understand the Depravities of Hollywood

A 1941 novel by a former Communist Party member about the dog-eat-dog scumbaggery of movie executives and the lying and artless bragging that Hollywood runs on.
by Alex N. Press via Jacobin on December 8, 2023
Black worker holding a bundle of metal rods.

'Working Class' Does Not Equal 'White'

What it means to be a Black worker in the time since slavery.
by Ibram X. Kendi, Blair LM Kelley via The Atlantic on August 7, 2023
Fisk University Class of 1888.

*The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part II)

Exploring recent debates about the uses–and utility–of Black history in both the academic and public spheres.
by Adolph Reed Jr. via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on April 10, 2023
Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

Staten Island, Forgotten Borough

Staten Island gets a lot of disrespect from other New Yorkers, some of it fair. But it has its own fascinating people’s history.
by James Bosco via Current Affairs on April 3, 2023
Inflatable rat known as "Scabby" in midtown New York City in 2019.

Scabby the Rat Is an American Labor Icon. Why Are His Manufacturers Disowning Him?

The frightening character who appears amid US union disputes can be traced back to a single factory, which wasn’t unionized.
by Tarpley Hitt via The Guardian on March 9, 2023
African American mineworkers holding the American flag and a sign reading Join Our Union

Black and White Workers and Communists Built a “Civil Rights Unionism” Under Jim Crow

Today’s activists should look to North Carolina's black and white tobacco workers, who organized a union and went on strike in the teeth of the Jim Crow South.
by Nelson Lichtenstein via Jacobin on October 3, 2022
A collage piece that includes photographs of African Americans at work and leisure.

Stories to Be Told

Unearthing the Black history in America’s national parks.
by Sahra Ali via Sierra Club on February 20, 2022
A wide shot of the Inventing Worlds and Characters: Encounters, Stories of Cinema 3 exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with ephemera from "Black Panther," "Star Wars," and "Dark Crystal."

At the Academy Museum, Hollywood's Own Labor History is Left Unexamined

'Isn’t this supposed to be the museum of the motion picture industry?' a historian asks. 'They forgot about the industry part.'
by Andy Lewis via Los Angeles Times on November 7, 2021
Black and white photo of construction workers, high up in a building, looking down over industrialized NYC.

The History of the United States as the History of Capitalism

What gets lost when we view the American past as primarily a story about capitalism? 
by Steven Hahn via The Nation on November 1, 2021
Phil Wiggins performs at the Blair Mountain Centennial. | Rafael Barker, collection of the WV Mine Wars Museum.

The Singing Left

At a recent commemoration of the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, songs of struggle took center stage.
by Kim Kelly via The Baffler on September 21, 2021
Yumi Doi, an activist with Group of Fighting Women, at a protest against sexual discrimination, Tokyo, June 1972

A Work in Progress

Two new books on the history of feminism emphasize global grassroots efforts and the influence of American women labor leaders on international agreements.
by Nancy F. Cott via New York Review of Books on September 15, 2021
Victorian women waving from ship

The Glamour and the Terror: Why Women in the Victorian Era Jumped at the Chance to Go to Sea

The daring women whose transatlantic journeys challenged gender roles.
by Siân Evans via Literary Hub on August 12, 2021
Chemical plant worker

Where Would We Be Without the New Deal?

A new history charts the forgotten ways the social politics of the Roosevelt years transformed the United States.
by Michael Kazin via The Nation on July 26, 2021
Illustration of Jon Meacham

The Man Who Loved Presidents

A review of Jon Meacham's newest book and documentary.
by Thomas Frank via Harper’s on June 10, 2021
A photograph of Ben Fletcher

Ben Fletcher's One Big Union

The hugely influential but largely forgotten labor leader Ben Fletcher couldn’t be more relevant to the most urgent political projects of today.
by Robin D. G. Kelley via Dissent on October 29, 2020
Photo taken from behind two men in a machine gun nest

‘The Road to Blair Mountain’

It’s the biggest battle on U.S. soil that most Americans have never heard of.
by Jim Branscome via The Daily Yonder on October 1, 2020
Paintings of a line of people in darkness in chains behind a Black woman in the light receiving a diploma.

Slavery Reparations Seem Impossible. In Many places, They’re Already Happening.

At the local level, reparations for slavery are already being paid all over the country.
by Thai Jones via Washington Post on January 31, 2020

How the Labor Movement Built New York

A new museum exhibit shows that you cannot understand the city’s history without understanding its workers.  
by Nick Juravich via The Nation on December 10, 2019

Life Under the Algorithm

How a relentless speedup is reshaping the working class.
by Gabriel Winant via The New Republic on December 4, 2019

Writing the History of Capitalism with Class

The "new history of capitalism" cuts class politics at the expense of history.
by Thomas Jessen Adams via Nonsite on September 9, 2019
United Mine Workers on a picket line.

The Past and Future of the American Strike

A new book tells the history of America through its workplace struggles.
by Richard Yeselson via The Nation on March 21, 2019
Covers of Lepore's "These Truths" and Loomis's "History of America in Ten Strikes."

The Limits of Liberal History

You can’t tell the story of America without the story of labor.
by Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs on October 28, 2018
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