
Jessica Tang, an Oral History
Oral History
When Teachers Mobilize Oral Histories

When Teachers Mobilize Oral Histories
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.
Women Have Always Worked: Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018.
An exploration from an online edX course.
In 1977, a bill to better enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) sailed quickly through the House of Representatives. Facing a Senate filibuster, its proponents weakened the proposal—making it, according to historian Jefferson Cowie, “lean, moderate, and basically unchallenging to the corporate order.”
The members of United Teachers Los Angeles believe that neighborhood public schools should serve as the essential anchors of our communities. As educators we see first-hand what students need in our classrooms, our school, our clinics, and our neighborhoods, and we deal with the issues that too often prevent those needs from being met.
In 2019, the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—the union membership rate—was 10.3 percent, down by 0.2 percentage point from 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
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.
If the 1960’s were known as the era of vigorous student militancy in most sectors of American education, the 1970’s may well go down in history as the decade of the angry teacher.