A History of the American Worker
Author: Richard Brandon Morris
Publisher:
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 251
ISBN-13:
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The Lean Years
Author: Irving Bernstein
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 598
ISBN-13: 1608460630
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Pre-eminent among historians of labor history." --Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The textbook history of the 1920s is a story of Prohibition, flappers, and unbounded prosperity. For millions of industrial workers, however, the "roaring twenties" looked very different. Working-class communities were already in crisis in the years before the stock market crash of 1929. Strikes in the 1920s and attempts to organize the unemployed and fight evictions in the early 1930s often fell victim to police violence and repression. Here, Irving Bernstein recaptures the social history of the decade leading up to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration, uncovers its widespread inequality, and sheds light on the long-forgotten struggles that form the prelude to the great labor victories of the 1930s. "In other words, viewed from afar, most of the people who were suffering the hardships of the Depression were depressed and even ashamed, ready to blame themselves for their plight. But the train of developments that connects changes in social conditions to a changed consciousness is not simple. People, including ordinary people, harbor somewhere in their memories the building blocks of different and contradictory interpretations of what it is that is happening to them, of who should be blamed, and what can be done about it. Even the hangdog and ashamed unemployed worker who swings his lunch box and strides down the street so the neighbors will think he is going to a job can also have other ideas that only have to be evoked, and when they are make it possible for him on another day to rally with others and rise up in anger at his condition. --From the new introduction by Frances Fox Piven
Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865-1920
Author: Melvyn Dubofsky
Publisher: Arlington Heights, Ill. : H. Davidson
Published: 1985
Total Pages: 190
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Turbulent Years
Author: Irving Bernstein
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 896
ISBN-13: 1608460649
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"A broad panorama in brilliant prose." --American Historical Review In this groundbreaking work of labor history, Irving Bernstein uncovers a period when industrial trade unionism, working-class power, and socialism became the rallying cry for millions of workers in the fields, mills, mines, and factories of America. With an introduction by Frances Fox Piven.
A Working People
Author: Steven A. Reich
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2013-09-12
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 1442203331
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this book, historian Steven A. Reich examines the economic, political and cultural forces that have beaten and built America’s black workforce since Emancipation. From the abolition of slavery through the Civil Rights Movement and Great Recession, African Americans have faced a unique set of obstacles and prejudices on their way to becoming a productive and indispensable portion of the American workforce. Repeatedly denied access to the opportunities all Americans are to be afforded under the Constitution, African Americans have combined decades of collective action and community mobilization with the trailblazing heroism of a select few to pave their own way to prosperity. This latest installment of the African American HistorySeries challenges the notion that racial prejudices are buried in our nation’s history, and instead provides a narrative connecting the struggles of many generations of African American workers to those felt the present day. Reich provides an unblinking account of what being an African American worker has meant since the 1860s, alluding to ways in which we can and must learn from our past, for the betterment of all workers, however marginalized they may be. A Working People: A History of African American Workers Since Emancipation is as factually astute as it is accessibly written, a tapestry of over 150 years of troubled yet triumphant African-American labor history that we still weave today.
The World of the Worker
Author: James R. Green
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9780252067341
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLaw and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement
Author: William E. Forbath
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2009-07-01
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 0674037081
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy did American workers, unlike their European counterparts, fail to forge a class-based movement to pursue broad social reform? Was it simply that they lacked class consciousness and were more interested in personal mobility? In a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, William Forbath challenges this notion of American “individualism.” In fact, he argues, the nineteenth-century American labor movement was much like Europe’s labor movements in its social and political outlook, but in the decades around the turn of the century, the prevailing attitude of American trade unionists changed. Forbath shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial to reshaping labor’s outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.
A History of the American Worker
Author: Richard B. Morris
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-07-14
Total Pages: 278
ISBN-13: 1400856175
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOffering the six historical essays from the out-of-print Bicentennial volume originally published by the U.S. Department of Labor, this book tells the richly dramatic and rewarding story of the working men and women who built the nation, from colonial settlement and the beginning of the republic through the modern labor movement and the space age. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
She Was One of Us
Author: Brigid O'Farrell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2012-01-15
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0801462452
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlthough born to a life of privilege and married to the President of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt was a staunch and lifelong advocate for workers and, for more than twenty-five years, a proud member of the AFL-CIO's Newspaper Guild. She Was One of Us tells for the first time the story of her deep and lasting ties to the American labor movement. Brigid O'Farrell follows Roosevelt—one of the most admired and, in her time, controversial women in the world—from the tenements of New York City to the White House, from local union halls to the convention floor of the AFL-CIO, from coal mines to political rallies to the United Nations. Roosevelt worked with activists around the world to develop a shared vision of labor rights as human rights, which are central to democracy. In her view, everyone had the right to a decent job, fair working conditions, a living wage, and a voice at work. She Was One of Us provides a fresh and compelling account of her activities on behalf of workers, her guiding principles, her circle of friends—including Rose Schneiderman of the Women's Trade Union League and the garment unions and Walter Reuther, "the most dangerous man in Detroit"—and her adversaries, such as the influential journalist Westbrook Pegler, who attacked her as a dilettante and her labor allies as "thugs and extortioners." As O'Farrell makes clear, Roosevelt was not afraid to take on opponents of workers' rights or to criticize labor leaders if they abused their power; she never wavered in her support for the rank and file. Today, union membership has declined to levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the silencing of American workers has contributed to rising inequality. In She Was One of Us, Eleanor Roosevelt's voice can once again be heard by those still working for social justice and human rights.
The Big Squeeze
Author: Steven Greenhouse
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2009-02-10
Total Pages: 386
ISBN-13: 1400096529
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? In this fresh, carefully researched book, New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse explores the economic, political, and social trends that are transforming America's workplaces, including the decline of the social contract that created the world's largest middle class and guaranteed job security and good pensions. We meet all kinds of workers—white-collar and blue-collar, high-tech and low-tech, middle-class and low-income—as we see shocking examples of injustice, including employees who are locked in during a hurricane or fired after suffering debilitating, on-the-job injuries. With pragmatic recommendations on what government, business and labor should do to alleviate the economic crunch, The Big Squeeze is a balanced, consistently revealing look at a major American crisis.
