This site brings together information about the history and ongoing influence of newspapers and periodicals published by unions, labor councils, and radical organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Labor newspapers have been a critical part of American labor movements since the early 19th century and an equally critical, if largely unacknowledged, part of the history of American journalism. Today more than a hundred periodicals serve the labor movement. Thousands more have done so in the past.
In 1820 Lowell, known as East Chelmsford, MA at the time, had a population of 200 and was a farming community. Thirty years later, the population had grown to 33,000 and one could find 32 textile mills in existence there. Lowell was an ideal location for these mills because it was located near the Merrimac River. The river supplied the water necessary to run these factories.
The West Coast connects to the world through its ports. Ships have been the economic lifeblood of the West Coast since the early 19th century, and the ports where goods and people move from water to land and from land to water have keyed important…
The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964. Millions of Mexican agricultural workers crossed the border under the program to work in more than half of…
LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History is the official journal for the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), and is housed at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. A subscription to LABOR is available through membership in LAWCHA.
Women Have Always Worked: Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018.
An exploration from an online edX course.
In 2019, there were 25 major work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting at least one shift, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Between 2010 and 2019 there were a total of 154 work stoppages, averaging 15 stoppages a year.
The repeated argument I hear from people who are opposed to Oklahoma teachers walking out tomorrow is “we knew what we were doing when we signed up for this.” You’re right. We did. We signed up for the hardest job in the world and putting our kids first. Here’s a poem about it.
