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$45.00
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Baters, Beth Tompkins,
PULLMAN PORTERS AND THE RISE OF PROTEST POLITICS IN BLACK AMERICA, 1925-1945
. NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
Photographs, notes, bibilography, index, 275 pages.
~~~ Between WW I and WW II, African Americans' quest for civil
rights took on a more aggressive character as a new group of black
activists challenged the politics of civility traditionally embraced
by old-guard leaders in favor of a more forceful protest strategy.
The author focuses on the struggle of the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters (BSCP) to form a union in Chicago, headquarters of the
Pullman Company. ~~~ Bates shows how the BSCP overcame initial
opposition from most of Chicago's black leaders by linking its
union message with the broader social movement for racial equality.
As members of BSCP protest networks mobilized the black community
around the quest for manhood rights and economic freedom, they broke
down resistance to organized labor even as they expanded the boundaries
of citizenship to include equal economic opportunity. By the mid-1930s,
BSCP protest networks gained platforms at the national level, fusing
Brotherhood activities first with those of the National Negro Congress
and later with the March on Washington Movement. Lessons learned during
this era guided the next generation of activists, who carried the black
freedom struggle forward after World War II.
~~~ From the Chicago Tribune: "A splendid study. . . . By skillfully
placing the union efforts of anonymous railway workers in their proper place at the
forefront of the 20th Century struggle for black civil rights, Beth Tompkins Bates
has given us a book of inspiring vision. This is an American story worth
remembering and celebrating."
~~~ Currently in print at $49.95.
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Bradford, Roark JOHN HENRY. NY: 1931, 1st(as stated) edition, Lit. Guild/Harper and brothers.
VG-(light fading spineside, adhesive stain within from bookplate) Blue boards; woodcuts by Lankes $65.00
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The Bread & Roses Strike
1912
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Watson, Bruce,
BREAD & ROSES: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the
American Dream.
. NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(NY: Viking Books, 2005). 352 pages.
~~~ From Kirkus Reviews:
A vivid work of labor history,
recounting a famed textile workers' strike of 1912.
Lawrence, Mass., was a major center of textile
manufacture in the early 1900s, and most of the work was
done by immigrants -- Italians, Portuguese, Greeks and
others whom a nativist magazine called "the off-scourings
of Southern Europe . . . [who] will not be assimilated
[and] have no sympathy with our institutions." Apparently,
journalist Watson records, one of those institutions was
poor pay. The textile makers, organizing under the
banner of radical labor unions such as the Industrial
Workers of the World (which, Watson writes, "seemed to
show up whenever labor unrest began to smolder"),
complained about wages and working conditions,
eliciting the response of another institution: when the
workers went on strike in the winter of 1912, the mill
owners prevailed upon the state to send in the militia,
as if to lend
credence to Jay Gould's observation, "I can hire one half
of the working class to kill the other half." Violence
ensued, and workers died, including one Italian woman
whom Watson nominates for residence in a Tomb of the
Unknown Immigrant. Naturally, the violence was blamed on
the workers. The strikers won wide sympathy, however,
when they sent their hungry children down to New York
City to stay with relatives; when the kids returned six
or seven weeks later,
well covered by the press, "they were plump -- some had
gained a dozen pounds or more-and well clothed." That was
evidence enough to suggest to at least some
contemporaries that the immigrants were indeed being
misused, and in the wake of what has come to be known as
the 'Bread and Roses' strike, the textile workers
actually came out ahead: theleading plant agreed to raise
wages, to pay extra
for overtime work and to rehire even the most vocal of
the homegrown activists.
And so it was-at least for a time, when bosses across
the land returned with a vengeance. A fine
reconstruction of events now too little remembered.
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$26.00
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Brody, David,. IN LABOR'S CAUSE: Main
Themes on the History of the American Worker.
. NEW copy.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 272 pages.
~~~ "These extended essays by one of the preeminent scholars in U.S. labor history
discuss central questions in the field, from the colonial period to the present:
What do the first demands for a fixed workday tell us about how early American
workers experienced the beginnings of the industrial revolution? Why did
American labor politics never manage to break the grip of the two-party system?
What was the impact of ideology, career leadership, and ethnicity on the
American labor movement? How did American trade unionism cope with the
market-drive forces of American capitalism? Why did so great a national crisis
as World War II have so modest an impact on labor-capital-state relations in
America? And finally, how did the struggle for industrial unionism produce the
highly formalized "adversarial" system of workplace representation that many
observers today see as one of the prime obstacles to American competitiveness in
the new global economy? The book's essay structure permits detailed exploration
of significant issues, while its wide chronological range and emphasis on
causation broaden its scope to embrace major themes and trends. Like Brody's
Workers in Industrial America (Second Edition, Oxford, 1993), In Labor's Cause
makes an important contribution toward a comprehensive interpretation of the
history of workers in America, and will be a fundamental component of any U.S.
survey course, as well as courses in American labor or economic history." ~~~
Paperback OUT OF PRINT; hardcover
currently in print at $67.00.
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Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley,
WOMEN AND THE TRADES: Pittsburgh,
1907-1908. Pittsburgh: 1984, 1st edition, U of Pittsburgh Press. Near
fine Trade Paperback; illustrations. OUT OF PRINT. $17.50
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Cahn, William,
THE PICTORIAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN LABOR.
. NY: 1973, 1st edition, Crown. VG in G(light wear, some taping)dust jacket
Oversize; blue boards; profusely illustrated. OUT OF PRINT. $22.50
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Davis, Rebecca Harding,
LIFE IN THE IRON MILLS, or THE KORL WOMAN. NY: 1972, 4th printing, Feminist Press. G(writing to flyleaf,
some underlining, stain to edge, stickers to back wrap) Paperback. $7.50
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Dobbs, Farrell,
REVOLUTIONARY CONTINUITY: Birth of the Communist Movement, 1918-1920.
VG- (light wear)
Trade PAPERBACKs; in 2 volumes. (NY: Pathfinder), 1980.
First edition.
~~~ "Dobbs does not delve in the minutiae
of small radical sects. Instead, he places the growth of socialism and
the birth of communist movement in the context of a concise, but vivid
history of working class life and struggle in the USA and of the
influences of the world beyond that. This is a book written to arm
fighters against oppression, fighters for workers rights with their
history. Dobbs also provides in one chapter a concise history of Marx
and Engels struggles to build the First International. The most
interesting to me was his story of how he went from being a forman
at Western Electric and a small store owner to being one of the great
leaders of the labor upsurge of the 1930s and a leader of the Socialist
Workers Party.
" $15.00
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 Dobbs, Farrell,
TEAMSTER REBELLION.
NY: 1995, 7th printing, Pathfinder. VG. Trade paperback. OUT OF PRINT. $10.00
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Eggert, Gerald G.,
HARRISBURG INDUSTRIALIZES: The Coming of
Factories to an American Community.
U Park: 1993, 1st edition, PSU Press. Fine/fine brown boards;
illustrations.
~~~Currently in print at $49.50.
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Ettinger, Elizabeth, ROSA LUXEMBURG: A Life.
. Boston: 1986, 1st Paperback edition, Beacon Press. VG Trade Paperback. OUT OF PRINT.
$12.50
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Fink, Gary M.,
THE FULTON BAG AND COTTON MILLS STRIKE OF 1914-1915
. Ithaca: 1993, 1st edition, ICR/Cornell U Press. Near fine/near
fine green boards; illustrations. From the Publisher: "Mill operatives walked off their
jobs at Atlanta's Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills complex in the spring of 1914, initiating a
strike that involved not only the class conflict inherent in a labor-management dispute,
but also ethnic confrontations, gender divisions, social and economic reforms, regional
and sectional differences, and the textile industry's rendition of the gospel of
efficiency. The year-long strike that followed was singularly well documented,
partly by the reports of labor spies paid by management to gather information about
striking employees and disrupt union organizing activities. Closely following dramatic
confrontations in the northeastern textile industry, the Fulton Bag strike attracted
national attention, drawing teams of investigators from the United States Department
of Labor and from the United States Commission." Currently in print at $29.95. Our price: $25.00
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$40.00
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Fink, Gary M. and Merl E. Reed (editors),
RACE, CLASS, AND COMMUNITY IN SOUTHERN LABOR HISTORY. University
of Alabama Press , 1994. NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket, still in shrinkwrap.
320 pages. From the publisher: "Under the leadership of Gary M Fink and Merl E.
Reed, Georgia State University has hosted the Southern Labor Studies Conferences
approximately every two years. The conferences have yielded two previous volumes,
published in 1977 and 1981, and this volume, which contains selected papers from the
seventh conference held in 1991. As evidenced by the quality of these essays, the
field of southern labor history has come into its own. Research interest is peaking: the
practitioners are younger scholars, and much of their work emphasizes the new
social and political history. While the topics covered in this volume usually reflect that
methodology, their chronology ranges from the antebellum period to the 1970s,
suggesting the variety of sources and changing research approaches that can be
used in rendering new meaning to the past. Although the subject of gender was
generally a minor theme in these sessions, work now being done leaves no doubt
that at some future conference gender will attract a commanding amount of
attention. In introducing and describing their respective areas, the associate editors,
Robert M. Zieger (textile workers), Joe W. Trotter Jr., (African Americans), and Clifford
M. Kuhn (labor politics), have provided a rich historiographical background. The
essays in this volume will enlighten the reader on many important aspects of the
history of southern labor, and they will also raise new questions to be explained by
other scholars and future conferences." OUT OF PRINT.
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Fung, Archon, Joel Rogers and Tessa Hebb (eds),
WORKING CAPITAL: The Power of Labor's Pensions.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (Cornell University Press, 2001).
288 pages.
~~~
U.S. pension funds are now worth more than $7 trillion, and many people
believe that the most important task for the labor movement is to harness
their share of this capital and develop strategies that will help, rather
than hurt, workers and unions. Working Capital challenges money managers
and today's labor movement by asking how workers' hard-earned savings can
be put to use in socially and economically progressive ways. Responsible
management of pensions will create greater growth and prosperity in America,
and the authors of Working Capital show that the long-term interests of
pension plan beneficiaries are well served through a "worker-owners" view of
the economy.
~~~ This book builds on the work of the Heartland Forum supported by the
United Steelworkers of America, the AFL-CIO's Center for Working Capital,
and several foundations, including the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller
Foundation, to draw together the wisdom of a number of experts on labor's next
best moves in the pension market.
CONTRIBUTORS:
~~Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
~~Eric Becker, Trillium Asset Management
~~Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation
~~Archon Fung, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
~~Leo W. Gerard, United Steelworkers of America
~~Teresa Ghilarducci, University of Notre Dame
~~Tessa Hebb, Hebb, Knight and Associates
~~David Mackenzie, United Steelworkers of America
~~J. W. Mason, Center for Working Capital, AFL-CIO
~~Patrick McVeigh, Trillium Asset Management
~~Marleen O'Connor, Stetson University College of Law
~~Bill Patterson, AFL-CIO
~~Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO
~~Jayne Zanglein, George Meany Center for Labor Studies
~~~ Currently in print at $39.95.
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Halker, Clark D.,
FOR DEMOCRACY, WORKERS AND GOD: Labor Song-Poems
and Labor Protest, 1865-1895. Urbana: 1991, 1st edition, U of IL
Press. New in new dust jacket. Maroon boards. From The American Historical Review: "Through the
peephole of a single form of popular expression, Clark D. Halker leads his readers on a most enjoyable
review of a robust period of American labor protest. His vehicle is the labor song-poem that regularly
adorned the pages of the nation's far-flung labor press in the post-Civil War years. . .. Analytically,
perhaps Halker's major contributions lie both in his renewed emphasis on Christian influence within the
labor movement and in his shrewd characterization of the eclipse of the autonomous culture of the
song-poem by the rise of more commercially produced, popular entertainment. Although the labor
poets willingly savaged every convenient foe, Halker's account suggests that they saved their
most precious venom for capitalistic greed outfitted in Sunday Christianity. Currently in print
at $29.95.
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Harris, William H.,
THE HARDER WE RUN: Black Workers since the Civil War
. NY: 1982, 1st edition, Oxford U Press.
G+(ex-lib marks--yet clean and tight) in VG-(ex-lib sticker)
dust jacket.
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Harris, William H.,
KIDS AT WORK: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor
. NEW copy. TRADE PAPERBACK. Photographs, 112 pages.
Photobiography of early twentieth-century photographer and schoolteacher Lewis
Hine, using his own work as illustrations. Hines's photographs of children at
work were so devastating that they convinced the American people that Congress
must pass child labor laws.
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The Haymarket
1886
|
Green, James,
DEATH IN THE HAYMARKET: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America.
. NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (NY: Knopf, 2006).
Illustrations, 400 pages.
~~~ On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a Chicago labor rally, wounding
dozens of policemen, seven of whom eventually died. Coming in the midst of the
largest national strike Americans had ever seen, the bombing created mass
hysteria and led to a sensational trial, which culminated in four controversial
executions. The trial seized headlines across the country, created the nation's
first red scare and dealt a blow to the labor movement from which it would
take decades to recover. ~~~ Death in the Haymarket brings these remarkable
events to life, re-creating a tempestuous moment in American social history.
James Green recounts the rise of the first great labor movement in the wake of
the Civil War and brings to life the epic twenty-year battle for the eight-hour
workday. He shows how the movement overcame numerous setbacks to orchestrate a
series of strikes that swept the country in 1886, positioning the unions for a
hard-won victory on the eve of the Haymarket tragedy. ~~~ As he captures
the frustrations, tensions and heady victories, Green also gives us a rich
portrait of Chicago, the Midwestern powerhouse of the Gilded Age. We see the
great factories and their wealthy owners, including men such as George Pullman,
and we get an intimate view of the communities of immigrant employees who
worked for them. Throughout, we are reminded of the increasing power of
newspapers as, led by the legendary Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill,
they stirred up popular fears of the immigrants and radicals who led the
unions. ~~~ Death in the Haymarket is an important addition to the
history of American capitalism and a moving story about the class tensions at
the heart of Gilded Age America.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly:
As Green thoroughly documents, the bloody Haymarket riot of May 4, 1886,
changed the history of American labor and created a panic among Americans
about (often foreign-born) "radicals and reformers" and union activists. The
Haymarket demonstration, to protest police brutality during labor unrest in
Chicago, remained peaceful until police moved in, whereupon a bomb was thrown
by an individual never positively identified, killing seven policemen and
wounding 60 others. Shortly after, labor leaders August Spies and Albert
Parsons, along with six more alleged anarchists, stood convicted of murder
on sparse evidence. Four of them went to the gallows in 1887; another committed
suicide. The surviving three received pardons in 1893. The Knights of Labor,
at that time America's largest and most energetic union, received the blame
for the riot, despite a lack of conclusive evidence, and many Knights locals
migrated to the less radical American Federation of Labor. Labor historian
Green (Taking History to Heart) eloquently chronicles all this,
producing what will surely be the definitive word on the Haymarket affair
for this generation. Green is particularly strong in documenting the episode's
long aftermath, especially the decades-long efforts of the white Parsons's
black wife to exonerate her husband.
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The Homestead Strike
1892
|
Burgoyne, Arthur G.,
THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE OF 1892.
. Pittsburgh: 1982, 2nd printing, U of PGH Press.
VG-(former owner's stamp
to endpaper ) Trade Paperback; illustrations.
~~~ The violent events of 1892 during the Homestead strike stand
together as one of the great dramatic moments in American labor
history....In 1893 Arthur Burgoyne, one of Pittsburgh's most skilled and
sensitive journalists, published Homestead, a complete history of
the strike.... This new edition, published under a new title, is heavily
illustrated with period pictures.
~~~ Currently in print at $15.95.
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Demerest, David P., ed.,
THE RIVER RAN RED: Homestead 1892. Pittsburgh: 1992, 1st edition, U of Pittsburgh
Press. VG+ Large trade Paperback; illustrations. Synopsis: "This is an "anthology of
newspaper clippings, sermons, photographs, cartoons, and other contemporary sources . . .
{pertaining to} the lockout and strike at the Carnegie steelworks in Homestead,
Pennsylvania, in 1892." (N Y Rev Books) From Library Journal: "July 6, 1992 will
mark the 100th anniversary of the most significant labor-management confrontation in U.S.
history: the Homestead Strike. In commemoration of this industrial crisis, Demarest
(Carnegie-Mellon) and eight coeditors have produced an anthology of events surrounding the
conflict. The numerous illustrations include photographs, cartoons, and period engravings.
The text, which includes excerpts from magazine and newspaper articles, Congressional
testimony, and speeches and memoranda, reveals the viewpoints of some major players:
industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, unionist John McLuckie, and anarchists
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Although this anthology contains a wealth of
information, it lacks an index to guide the reader to specific material in the text." $18.50
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Mother Jones
|
[Jones] Steel, Edward M., ed., THE COURT-MARTIAL OF MOTHER JONES. Lexington: 1995, 1st edition, University
Press of Kentucky. As new Trade Paperback $16.50
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Kimeldorf, Howard,
BATTLING FOR AMERICAN LABOR.
NEW copy, TRADE PAPERBACK.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 244 pages.
~~~ "This study of Philadelphia longshoremen and NYC culinary workers offers a new
interpretation of American labor history. Challenging received thinking about
rank and file workers and the character of their unions, Kimeldorf argues that
organized labor's reliance upon worker self-organization and direct economic
action can be seen as a kind of syndicalism."
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Miller, Marc S., ed., WORKING LIVES: The Southern Exposure History
of Labor in the South. NY: 1980, 1st edition, Pantheon. VG-(price blacked
out, light wear, ink mark to edge) 0394739655 trade paperback; illustrations. OUT OF PRINT. $12.50
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Perlman, Selig,
THE THEORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT.
. NY: 1970, Facsimile reprint of 1928 edition, Augustus M. Kelley.
VG-(light rubbing) Blue boards $25.00
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Petro, Sylvester,
THE KINGSPORT STRIKE. New
Rochelle: 1967, 1st edition, Arlington House. VG in G dust jacket Grey boards $30.00
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Puckett, Anita, SELDOM ASK, NEVER TELL: Labor and Discourse in Appalachia. NY: 2000, 1st edition,
Oxford U Press. As new, blue boards. OUT OF PRINT.
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Rasmussen, Barhara,
ABSENTEE LANDOWNING AND EXPLOITATION IN WEST VIRGINIA 1760-1920. Lexington: 1994,
1st edition, U of Kentucky Press. As new/as new Black boards $27.50
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Rice, Charles Owen,
FIGHTER WITH A HEART: Writings
of Charles Owen Rice, Pittsburgh Labor Priest. . Pittsburgh:
1996, 1st edition, U of Pittsburgh Press. As new in as new dust jacket. Black boards;
illustrations. From the Publisher: "[The book] provides ample evidence of [Rice's] gift
for words, trenchant prose, and passionate commitment. . . . This book documents the story
of one of the more colorful and admirable Irish-American figures to serve the cause of
peace and justice in the 20th century. The likes of him are evermore in need today." --Irish Edition.
Currently in print at $49.95.
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Rosenberg, Daniel,
NEW ORLEANS DOCKWORKERS: Race, Labor, and
Unionism 1892-1923. Albany: 1988, 1st edition, SUNY Press. Near
fine Pictorial boards. From The Journal of American History: "Rosenberg has shown
that, despite the prevalence of black economic suppression on the waterfronts of other
southern cities (especially Galveston, Texas), New Orleans had a different pattern of
biracial interaction in the workplace. While demonstrating the ways that New Orleans was
unique among southern port cities, Rosenberg unnecessarily narrowed his study. In his
provocative Black Coal Miners in America {BRD 1988} Ronald L. Lewis found similar biracial
solidarity in Alabama in the same period. . . . Rosenberg had the opportunity todiscuss a
phenomenon broader than the New Orleans dock experience to strengthen an already convincing
argument about past possibilities for biracial cooperation between black and white laborers.
This criticism, however, is made about a solid and provocative exploration of an important
and fascinating aspect of American labor history." OUT OF PRINT.
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$25.00
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Salmond, John A., MISS LUCY OF THE CIO: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LUCY RANDOLPH MASON, 1882-1959
. University of Georgia Press., 1988. NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. Notes, bibliography, index, 227 pages. Synopsis: "Mason was a feminist, social activist, and spokesperson for the CIO {Congress of Industrial Organizations}. Salmond examines her career, . . . liberal beliefs, and {what the author sees as her}ability to use other people's stereotypes of an elite Southern lady for the benefit of working people's causes." OUT OF PRINT.
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Schneirov, Richard, PRIDE AND SOLIDARITY: A History of
the
Plumbers and Pipefitters of Columbus, Ohio, 1889-1986. Ithaca:
1993, 1st edition, ICR/Cornell U Press. Near fine/near fine maroon boards; illustrations.
Table of Contents as follows: Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Windows into the Union;
The Power of Organization, 1889-1902; The Union Takes Shape, 1901-1945;
Building a Stronger and Fairer Union, 1945-1973; A Fight for Survival: The Nonunion Challenge, 1970-1989;
E Pluribus Unum: Faces in the Union; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.
Currently in print at $45.00.
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Sims, Patsy, CLEVELAND BENJAMIN'S DEAD: A Struggle for
Dignity in Louisiana's Cane Country. Athens: 1994, 1st edition,
U of Georgia Press. as new/as new Gold boards; photographs by Mitchel L. Osborne. From
Booknews: "Sims (writing, U. of Pittsburgh) chronicles daily life in a community of
Louisiana sugar cane workers in the 1970s and their struggles to sue the Department of
Agriculture over irregularities in their wages. Using a mix of journalism and oral history,
she investigates the workers' substandard housing and inadequate job safety, and covers a
tragic accident in which a worker is killed beneath an overturned tractor. This second
edition restores two complete chapters omitted from the first edition (Elsevier-Dutton,
1981), and adds an epilogue updating the story through 1992. Includes b&w photos.
Lacks an index and a bibliography." In Print at $30.00.
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Stadum, Beverly, POOR WOMEN AND THEIR
FAMILIES: Hard Working Charity Cases 1900-1930
. Albany: 1992, 1st edition, SUNY Press. Near fine.
Brown and white boards.
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Steelworkers
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$16.00
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Brody, David,. LABOR IN CRISIS:
The Steel Strike of 1919
. University of Illinois Press, 1987. NEW copy. PAPERBACK. Bibliographical
essay, notes, index, 218 pages. "This book explores the events that culminated in
the memorable steel strike of 1919. It assesses the roles of management, the trade
unions, the industrial workers, the government, and the public. It seeks to explain why
unionization failed before the New Deal era. And, by extension, it may illuminate a
larger puzzle: why did mass-production unionism succeed when it did? The examination of a
movement that failed has its historical uses." Currently in print at $16.95. Our price: $16.00.
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$30.00
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Eggert, Gerald G., STEELMASTERS AND LABOR
REFORM, 1886-1923. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. NEW copy. Hardcover
without dust jacket, as issued. Still in shrinkwrap. "... provides an inside view of top
steel officials arguing their positions on various reforms under consideration ~ stock
purchase plans, employer liability, employee representatiion, and elimination of the
twelve-hour shift and seven-day work week." In print at $49.95. $30.00
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McKiven, Jr., Henry M., IRON AND STEEL: Class, Race and
Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875-1920. Chapel Hill: 1995,
1st edition, U of NC Press. Near fine Trade Paperback; illustrations. From The Journal
of American History: "A competent study of an important southern working-class
community, Iron and Steel argues that 'the caste system, and the ideology of white
supremacy that supported it, was essential to the defense' of the class interests of white
workers. But because the book considers only the history of the iron and steel industry, it
offers a startlingly incomplete portrait of working-class race relations in Birmingham. . .
. {McKiven's} research appears solid, and the persistence of white working-class racism is
well documented. But the example of iron workers is profoundly misleading. Anyone with a
passing acquaintance with Birmingham will be struck by the absence of workers from the
district's largest industry, coal mining, in which Black and white skilled workers
laboredtogether. . . . Acknowledging this side of Birmingham's race relations would have
forced McKiven to make a more subtle argument." Currently in print at $19.95. Our price:
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Rogovin, Milton and Michael Frisch,
PORTRAITS IN STEEL
. Ithaca: 1993, 1st edition, Cornell U Press. Near fine Large trade
Paperback;
illustrations. From Choice: "Rogovin, an award-winning documentary photographer, and
Frisch (SUNY, Buffalo), a major American oral historian, have combined to create an artistic
and scholarly treatment of 'deindustrialized' workers from the Buffalo steel mills. . . .
The result is a moving set of documentary photographs, from the 1970s and '80s, reminiscent
of the work of the famous group associated with Roy Stryker and the Farm Security Administration
(FSA) during the New Deal. To these are added sensitive, well-edited, and revealing interviews.
They remind readers that terms like 'deindustrialization' involve people, and that it is people
who endure both the joy and the sorrow that are the fabric of history. Currently in print
at $33.50.
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UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA STEEL LABOR. Indianapolis: Jan. 1956-Dec. 1960, 1st edition, United Steelworkers of America. VG-(four bumped corners) Rebound journals; oversize; dense; volumes 21-25; extremely fascinating $200.00
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UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA STEEL LABOR. Indianapolis: Jan. 1951-Dec. 1955, Ist edition, United
Steelworkers of America. G+(hinge loose, light wear to boards) Rebound journals; oversize;
illustrations; dense; volumes 16-20. Extremely fascinating material. $200.00
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Walker, Charles R., STEELTOWN: An Independent Case History of
the
Conflict Between Progress and Security. NY: 1950, 1st edition,
Harper and Brothers. G+( a few smudges to boards, light wear to top edge of spine) Grey
boards.
OUT OF PRINT.
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Steffen, Charles G.,
THE MECHANICS OF BALTIMORE: Workers and Politics in the Age of Revolution 1763-1812
. Urbana: 1984, 1st edition, U of IL Press. Near fine. Blue boards.
From The American Historical Review: "{The author} sensibly seeks to balance the
material and ideological factors impinging on artisans' lives. Two chapters of this book
are especially noteworthy in this regard. Using unusually complete records of indenture
and apprenticeship, he traces the postrevolutionary degradation of labor in shoemaking
and tailoring, as children and women working for pitiable wages flooded intoshops to
fabricate 'slop goods' for a mass market. In the final chapter the author traces the
rise of Methodism in Baltimore and analyzes its uneven appeal among working-class families.
His treatment, which invites comparison with E.P. Thompson's acerbic indictment of
Methodism among the English working class {The making of the English working class,
BRD 1964}, shows the complexity of labor's Methodist connection." Currently in print at
$34.95.
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Stromquist, Shelton .
A GENERATION OF BOOMERS: The Pattern of
Railroad Labor Conflict in 19th-century America. Urbana: 1993, 1st
edition, U of IL Press. NEW copy. Trade paperback; illustrations. From Choice: "This is an
account of the "railroad strikes between 1877 and 1894, specifically those in the growing
western communities. . . . {The book discusses the} fabric of social and fraternal
associations, the railway brotherhoods, and other craft organizations, and {attempts to}
relate workplace, community, and the larger political economy. It examines management
strategies vis-a-vis labor, the structure of the railway industry, the life of the . . .
mobile train hand, the 'boomers,' and their place in the social and civic life of the
community." Bibliography. Index. OUT OF PRINT.
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Thomas, Keith , OXFORD BOOK OF WORK
. Oxford: 2001. NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. 640 pages.
From Forbes FYI: "This magnificent book represents the rarest ocurrence in all of publishing: an instant treasure. Sir Keith Thomas, the former president of the British Academy, has worked very hard indeed to compile these hundred of thoughtful passages that, taken together, represent the total spectrum of the complicated feelings we have about our jobs...our reasons for being, as much as we might protest the notion. Dead-end jobbers looking for cynical humor will find what they want here, as will titans of industry looking for inspirational hymns to labor's inherent nobility. There's genuine wisdom and thoughtfulness on all of these pages about nothing less than our roles and responsibilities as human beings living in societies."
Hardcover edition OUT OF PRINT. (Paperback edition currently in print at $17.95).
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Hurwitz, Johanna, DEAR EMMA
. NEW copy; hardcover with dust jacket. (Harper Collins).
Illustrated by Barbara Garrison. 150 pages.
~~~ In her letters to a Vermont friend, eighth grader Dossi, a Russian, Jewish immigrant living in the Lower East Side of New York City in 1910, shares her thoughts about her new brother-in-law, the diphtheria epidemic, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Ages 8-12
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Von Drehle, David, TRIANGLE: The Fire that Changed America
. NEW copy; trade PAPERBACK. (Atlantic Monthly Press).
340 pages.
~~~ On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. With ladders too short for a rescue, firemen had to watch in horror, along with hundreds on the street, as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. The final toll was 146 people - 123 of them women. It was the worst industrial disaster in New York City history until 9/11.
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Auch, Mary Jane, ASHES OF ROSES
. NEW copy; hardcover with dust jacket. (Sagebrush Education Resources).
250 pages.
~~~ Sixteen-year-old Rose Nolan and her family are grateful to have finally reached America, the land of opportunity. But their happiness is shattered when part of their family is forced to return to Ireland. Rose wants to succeed and stays in New York with her younger sister Maureen. The sisters struggle to survive and barely do so by working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Then, just as Rose is forming friendships and settling in, a devastating fire forces her, Maureen, and their friends to fight for their lives. Surrounded by pain, tragedy, and ashes, Rose wonders if there is anything left for her in this great land of America.
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$15.00
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Vorse, Mary Heaton, STRIKE! University of Illinois
Press, 1991. NEW copy. PAPERBACK. Introduction by Dee Garrison. Novel by
radical journalist Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966) who covered union uprisings
from 1912 on. Novel based on the Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, North Carolina in the
late 1920s. 236 pages.
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Walkowitz, Daniel J.,
WORKER CITY, COMPANY TOWN: Iron and
Cotton-Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884.
Urbana: 1978, 1st edition, U of IL Press. Near fine/near fine. Blue boards. OUT OF PRINT. $20.00
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Woodman, Harold D.,
KING COTTON AND HIS RETAINERS:
Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800-1925.
Columbia: 1990, 1st edition, U of SC press. Near fine. Trade Paperback $24.50.
~~~ Reprinted as a classic (with a new introduction by the author) despite its relatively recent date of original publication (1968, U. of Kentucky Press). As the first systematic examination of the middlemen who financed and marketed the region's all-important cotton crop, Woodman's has become the standard work on the subject.
~~~
Hardcover OUT OF PRINT. Paperback currently in print at: $34.95.
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Woollacott, Angela
ON HER THEIR LIVES DEPEND: Munitions Workers in the Great War.
Berkeley: 1994, 1st edition, U of Ca Press. VG+ Trade Paperback; illustrations.
From the Publisher: "In this evocative book, Angela Woollacott analyzes oral histories,
workers' writings, newspapers, official reports, and factory song lyrics to present an
intimate view of women munitions workers in Britain during World War I. Munitions work
offered working-class women—for the first time—indepence, a reliable income, even an
improved standard of living. But male employers and trade unionists brought them
face-to-face with their subordination as women within their own class, while
experiences with middle-class women co-workers and police reminded them of their status
as working class. Woollacott sees the woman munitions worker as a powerful symbol of
modernity who challenged the gender order through her patriotic work and challenged class
differences through her increased sping power, mobility, and changing social behavior."
Currently in print at $19.95.
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Zandy, Janet, ed., CALLING HOME: Working Class Women's
Writing. New Brunswick: 1993, 2nd printing, Rutgers U Press.
VG Trade paperback; illustrations From The Nation: "{The authors'} stories are about labor itself,
harsh and unremitting, as well as the relationships that emerge in a life defined by that toil. Wherever
each narrative stands on the register of literary intention and achievement,the cumulative effect is an
eloquent case for the claims of these stories as literature. Collectively, they even suggest that there
is a whole, as yet unnamed kind of literature that voices the working-class female narrative.
Currently in print at $18.00.
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