Best of
Labor

1985

The Triangle Fire


Leon Stein - 1985
    The Cornell edition of Leon Stein's 1962 account features 16 illustrations, some never before published. A new introduction by the journalist William Greider makes clear that accounts of dangerous workplaces and sweatshop conditions are still all-too-relevant today, ninety years after the fire. The story of the catastrophe and the doomed Triangle Shirtwaist workers, as told by one of the great labor journalists, will not soon be forgotten. Praise for the 1962 edition "Stein . . . recreate[s] the tragic events of the fire in all their dramatic intensity. His moving account is a work of dedication." New York Times Book Review"With commendable restraint, [Stein] uses newspapers, official documents, and the evidence of survivors to unfold a story made more harrowing by the unemotional simplicity of its narration." Library Journal"Stein . . . suggests that the fire alerted the public to shocking working conditions all over the city and helped the unions organize the clothing industry, but his good taste keeps him from selling the reader any silver lining. A by-product of the careful research that has gone into this excellent narrative is an interesting sketch of the hard lives and times of working girls in the days when the business of America was business." New Yorker"

Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present


Jacqueline A. Jones - 1985
    A powerful account of the changing role of American black women in the labor force and in the family.

Thunder In the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21


Lon Savage - 1985
    Army Air Corps had been dispatched against striking miners.The origins of this civil war were in the Draconian rule of the coal companies over the fiercely proud miners of Appalachia.  It began in the small railroad town of Matewan when Mayor C. C. Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield sided with striking miners against agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who attempted to evict the miners from company-owned housing.  During a street battle, Mayor Testerman, seven Baldwin-Felts agents, and two miners were shot to death.Hatfield became a folk hero to Appalachia.  But he, like Testerman, was to be a martyr.  The next summer, Baldwin-Felts agents assassinated him and his best friend, Ed Chambers, as their wives watched, on the steps of the courthouse in Welch, accelerating the miners’ rebellion into open warfare.Much neglected in historical accounts, Thunder in the Mountains is the only available book-length account of the crisis in American industrial relations and governance that occured during the West Virginia mine war of 1920-21.

Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass


Dale Maharidge - 1985
    XX

Carry it On!: A History in Song and Picture of the Working Men and Women of America


Pete Seeger - 1985
    The book is built around 85 songs which capture vividly the experiences and struggles of American working people from old standards like 'Bread And Roses' and 'Solidarity Forever, ' to newer anthems like 'Des Colores' and 'Rise Again.' The songs combine with text, photographs, and illustrations to create a moving and vivid history of the American labor force from the American Revolution to this day.

Arena: The Story of the Federal Theatre


Hallie Flanagan - 1985
    

At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 Sanitation Strike and Martin Luther King, Jr.


Joan Turner Beifuss - 1985
    

The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers


George Padmore - 1985
    (Red International of Labour Unions) Magazine for the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, this publication had three purposes: "To briefly set forth some of the conditions of life of the Negro workers and peasants in different parts of the world; to enumerate some of the struggles which they have attempted to wage in order to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism; and, to indicate in a general way the tasks of the proletariat in the advanced countries so that the millions of black toilers might be better prepared to carry on the struggles against their white imperialist oppressors and native (race) exploiters, and join forces with their white brothers against the common enemy-World Capitalism."

The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes Under Capitalism and Socialism


Michael Burawoy - 1985
    

Kor: A History of the Workers' Defense Committee in Poland, 1976-1981


Jan Józef Lipski - 1985
    

Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience


Merritt Roe Smith - 1985
    In this book, historians of technology bring their special expertise to probing the influence of the military on technological development over a broad range of history and in a variety of cases.Bracketed by Merritt Roe Smith's overview and Alex Roland's bibliographic review, the case studies explore the relationship between Army ordnance and the development of the American system of manufacturing; the Army Corp of Engineers and the origin of modern management in the course of the expansion of the railroads; the Navy's adoption of the radio; Henry Ford's attempt to apply his mass-production methods to military ends in the building of the Eagle Boat; the Army's first large-scale employment of social scientists during World War II and their role in shaping the postwar research agenda; the Army Signal Corp's entrepreneurial role in the development of the transistor; the Navy's far-flung and well-funded postwar research and development program; and the social implications of military and scientific management styles, in particular the efforts to militarize management practices in the civilian sector.The case studies are the work of David K. Allison, Peter Buck, Susan J. Douglas, David A. Hounshell, Thomas J. Misa, David F. Noble, Charles F. O'Connell, Jr., and the editor, Merritt Roe Smith.

Women, Work and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History


Ruth Milkman - 1985
    This book will be valuable for scholars, students and general readers alike.