A gallery of photos to explore.
A comprehensive bibliography of information, documents and links of U.S. labor history sites on the internet. It was developed by labor historian Rosemary Feurer for the Labor and Working Class History Association. Visit site
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.
In 1907, Grace Strachan, a school principal and leader of New York’s Interborough Association of Women Teachers (IAWT), explained the significance of the organized teachers’ campaign. “I don’t think any of us are working simply for our own interests,” she offered.
The Takeaway traces it all back to August 1981, when nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike creating a standoff with Ronald Reagan that ended when he fired the majority of them and de-certified their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.
“Wildcat” strikes, like the one that teachers used effectively in West Virginia in February/March of this year, are when union members walk off the job despite the wishes of their leadership. By definition, they are something uncontrollable and spontaneous.
The Boott Cotton Mills Museum gives a snapshot of what is was like to work in New England cotton mills in the 1800s. The Museum, once Boott Mill #6, was originally owned by Kirk Boott, an industrialist who was responsible for much of the early urban planning that shaped Lowell’s industrial and residential landscape.
On November 23, 1909, more than 20,000 Yiddish-speaking immigrants, mostly young women in their teens and early twenties, launched an eleven-week general strike in New York’s shirtwaist industry. Dubbed the Uprising of the 20,000, it was the largest strike by women to date in American history.
Women Have Always Worked: Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018.
An exploration from an online edX course.
