Books about the American Labor movement

[Anonymous]

I recently became interested in the history of the American labor movement and I am looking for some good books to read about it. Many of the books on Amazon and goodreads do not seem to have that many reviews. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Not sure about books, but there is a blog called Lawyers Guns and Money that includes a labor historian who posts a feature called This Day in Labor History. It might have some links to other blogs and book suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Spoiler alert: It has a sad ending. Private sector unionization rates are very low.

[Anonymous]

For a pretty dense history of a pretty interesting case, there's Big Trouble, by J. Anthony Lukas. It's about the trial of Big Bill Haywood for the murder if Idaho's former governor, and it's really wide-ranging, covering the labor movement and American culture generally in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The cast of characters includes Clarence Darrow, Joe Hill, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Teddy Roosevelt, and our local hero, Walter Johnson. Parts of it are a slog but most of it is really interesting.

For a much lighter, easier read, there's A Whole Different Ballgame, by Marvin Miller. It's about how he turned the Major League Baseball Players Association from a small organization of company men into the first real union in professional sports.

Somewhere in the middle is Joe Hill, by Wallace Stegner. It's not strict history, it's a biographical novel. He's a wonderful writer.

If you like your labor history with a side of organized crime, there are a bunch of books written about the Teamsters. The leader is probably The Teamsters, by Steven Brill. It's fascinating to learn how the building of Las Vegas was financed. (By the Central States' Pension Fund, controlled by the syndicates in Cleveland and Kansas City.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently became interested in the history of the American labor movement and I am looking for some good books to read about it. Many of the books on Amazon and goodreads do not seem to have that many reviews. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Not a specific title, but I would read something on A. Phillip Randolph. Illustration of how the labor moment and the civil rights movement overlapped.

[Anonymous]

Not a specific title, but I would read something on A. Phillip Randolph. Illustration of how the labor moment and the civil rights movement overlapped.

21:56 here. Good call!

One more: Barbara Kingsolver, Holding the Line. First-person reporting of the Phelps-Dodge copper strikes in Arizona in the early 80s. Easy and gripping reading from an on-the-ground point of view.

[Anonymous]

NP -- thanks for the posting about the copper mine strikes. THere's also a really interesting book about this bizarre case involving anglo orphans adopted by Mexican-American families in a small Arizona mining town in the early 20th century which might be an interesting sort of sequel to that -- it references the strikes a lot as backdrop for the race relations. It's really fascinating in its discussion of how we dealt with ophans or abandoned children, and how latinos figured into (or didn't figure into) America race relations at that time. I can't recall the name, but it's an easy google.

[Anonymous]

I also recommend the documentary Harlan County, USA, which is about a 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike. The director, Barbara Kopple, was in Kentucky filming something else to do with unions when the strike happened, so she filmed that instead. Really fantastic film.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP -- thanks for the posting about the copper mine strikes. THere's also a really interesting book about this bizarre case involving anglo orphans adopted by Mexican-American families in a small Arizona mining town in the early 20th century which might be an interesting sort of sequel to that -- it references the strikes a lot as backdrop for the race relations. It's really fascinating in its discussion of how we dealt with ophans or abandoned children, and how latinos figured into (or didn't figure into) America race relations at that time. I can't recall the name, but it's an easy google.

Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction

[Anonymous]

Thanks pops!

[Anonymous]

I mean pps

[Anonymous]

Again not a specific book, but maybe it will motivate you to write one, OP. Lewis Carol popularized phrases like "Mad Hatter" and "Mad as a March Hare" really b/c the mercury involved in the felt making process made hatters quite sick. The Danbury Shakes case was a well know one: http://connecticuthistory.org/ending-the-danbury-shakes-a-story-of-workers-rights-and-corporate-responsibility/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loewe_v._Lawlor

[Anonymous]

My college history professor, Bruce Nelson (Dartmouth) is a highly regarded expert in the American Labor movement and wrote a couple of good books. He was a fantastic teacher!

[Anonymous]

I've enjoyed the book Company Town by Hardy Green. Not specifically labor focused, but is a great history of major company towns.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703649004575437642465708342

[Anonymous]

Lane Kirkland: Champion of American Labor
This highly laudatory biography tells a -fascinating story not only of the man who was a major force in America's labor movement but also of the era (1979-95) in which he served as head of the AFL-CIO. An uncompromising and tenacious leader of America's working people, Kirkland advocated freedom for the world's oppressed. With access to primary sources, Puddington describes how Kirkland was born into the segregationist anti-union South in 1922 and went on to become one of the most eloquent and effective spokesmen for workers worldwide. His philosophy was shaped by the New Deal, and he felt that government intervention, intelligently applied, would bring justice to the poor and level the playing field for ordinary people. In paying tribute to Kirkland at his memorial service in 1999, Henry Kissinger remarked, "He did his duty as he saw it, not for accolades. Freedom was his mission; social justice, his cause; opposition to totalitarianism, his vocation."