When Teachers Mobilize Oral Histories
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.
In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) issued the groundbreaking report, The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve. The report provided a counter-narrative to ideas popular among corporate education reformers (or de-formers, as some like to say).
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.”
“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.
Not long ago, in the pages of this journal, I argued a number of propositions about the current state of historical research in the area of teacher unionism. One of those propositions was that a full explanation of the history of teacher union activity in the U.S.A. quite likely would require a three-pronged analysis involving the local, state, and national arenas.
