thank you for visiting the labor history resource project as we build this resource!
Projects by Alice Kessler-Harris
From the first national strike in 1877 to the nation’s first unionized Apple store, Maryland workers have long been at the center of labor history, fighting in the name of a better, more just life for all. As the state of Maryland celebrates its 250th anniversary, Maryland250 Labor History aims to ensure that we not only remember and celebrate this legacy, but treat it as a guide for our future.
A collaborative and volunteer-run project, MD250 Labor History is bringing this history to life through historical documents, podcasts, walking tours, videos, and more. We hope it will serve as a robust resource for generations of workers to come.
Voces from La Planta centers the voices of meatpacking workers across California, Minnesota, Colorado, Mississippi, and Washington. Workers whose labor sustains the nation, yet whose lives are too often made invisible.
“And that’s how we did in the mill” is based on excerpts from oral histories with the last generation of women to work in the Lowell, Massachusetts textile mills, recorded by filmmaker Martha Norkunas in 1983.