To view as a full page click here:

To return to frame view, with table of contents on left, click here:

WORKERS AND WORK IN AMERICA, 1600 TO THE PRESENT: AN ON-LNE MULTIMEDIA COURSE

Prof. Gerald Zahavi
Office: SS 060R
Phone: 518-442-5427
Office Hrs: TO BE ANNOUNCED
E-mail: gzahavi@albany.edu

COURSE INTRODUCTION: This is a newly revised on-line course examining the evolution of work and worker organizations within the North American/U.S. economy from the late 1500s, through the "post-industrial" recent past. Recognizing that the emergence and growth of capitalism was as much a social, cultural, political, and environmental process as it was an economic one, we will look at both the structural economic changes that transformed work and American society in last 400 years, as well as the cultural and political (broadly conceived) factors that textured and shaped that transformation. We shall examine work (both men's and women's) and capitalist development as they shaped--and were shaped by: family roles; class identities and struggles; political conflicts; gender, racial and ethnic relations; cultural movements and transformations. Specific topics include: Amerindian economies and work cultures; colonial labor systems, including indentured servitude and slavery; artisinal and handicraft production; the rise of factory manufacturing; the evolution of the sexual division of labor; racial and ethnic segmentation in the labor force; labor struggles and political power; craft and industrial unionism; work in a global marketplace.

COURSE TEXTS:

• Miscellaneous articles (noted below)
• Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin, Labor in America: A History (2017).
• Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976)
• Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (Dover, 1996).
• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Vintage, 1990)
• Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (Delta, 1999).

RESERVE READINGS:Copies of the required books are available at the bookstore. They have also been placed on reserve in the library under History 316Z. Copies of articles are in the History Department reserve shelves under "History 316Z." They are located on the second floor of Ten Broeck Hall, near my office.

Note: Web-accessible public access computers are available at numerous locations on campus. I will identify locations at our first meeting.

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Introduction to the Internet and the WWW: Tutorials 
Writing Guide 
A Few Recommended Paper Topics (more will be announced in class) 

REQUIRED READING: John Schacht, "Labor History in the Academy: A Layman's Guide to a Century of Scholarship," Labor's Heritage 5 (Winter 1994), 4-21.

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Historians and the Study of U.S. Labor: A Bibliography
A Brief Historical Overview of the U.S. Labor Movement

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know: The New Labor History; Wisconsin School of Labor History; Selig Perlman; John R. Commons; A Theory of the Labor Movement; "nonmarket labor"; Marxist historical theory; labor market segmentation; dialectical materialism; social structure of accumulation

REQUIRED READING: "Seasons of Want and Plenty," (chaps. 3-5 of William Cronon's Changes in the Land).

Historical Sketches of North American Tribes
Bibliography -- North American Tribes

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know: Agawam tribe; usufruct rights; multicrop field planting; "They use not to winter and summer in one place, for that would be a reason to make fuell (sic.) scarse"; mosaic quality of New England ecosystems; ecological history; Roger Williams; William Pynchon; property "improvement"; "commodities"

REQUIRED READING: "The Labor Systems of Early America," (chap. 2, pp. 33-83) in Major Problems in the History of American Workers.

RECOMMENDED READING: Susan E. Klepp & Billy G. Smith, eds., The Infortunate: The Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley, an Indentured Servant (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992

Letters from an American Farmer, by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (1782)
Indenture Contract from 1726 -- Rice Thomas (High Resolution Copy of Original)
Indenture Contract from 1726 -- Rice Thomas (Low Resolution Copy of Original -- Quick Loading)
Indenture Contract from 1726 -- Rice Thomas (Text Copy)
Indenture Contract from 1740 -- James Franklin to Benjamin Franklin (High Resolution Copy of Original)
Indenture Contract from 1740 -- James Franklin to Benjamin Franklin (Low Resolution Copy of Original -- Quick Loading)
Indenture Contract from 1740 -- James Franklin to Benjamin Franklin (Text Copy)
Advertisements for Recovery of Runaway Servants [Source: Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser, February 10, 1772]
Advertisements for Recovery of Runaway Servants [Source: Pennsylvania Gazette [from the 1730s and 1740s]
Advertisement for Arrival and Sale of Indenture Servants [Source: Virginia Gazette, March 28, 1771]

Film/Video: "Daughters of Free Men" [To be shown in class]

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know: household production; the Lowell Offering; Lucy Larcom; "slaver" wagons; stretch-out; speedup; premium system; Mary Paul; Waltham-Lowell system; Rhode Island system; turn-out; Lawrence Manufacturing Company; "City of Spindles"; the ten hour day; Orestes A. Brownson; Seth Luther; The Awl; Lynn MA; Cordwainers' Mutual Benefit Society of Lynn; apprentice; journeyman; master craftsman; artisan culture; guilds; The Great Shoemakers Strike; family economy; factory system; outwork system; Equal Rights doctrine/tradition; republicanism; sexual division of labor; "ten footer"; mechanization; centralization; Clara Brown; bottomers; leather stitching machine; shoebinders; uppers; "order system"; Female Society of Lynn; metropolitan industrialization

REQUIRED READING: "Slavery and the Transition to Free Labor," in Major Problems in the History of American Workers, pp. 124-170.

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Excerpts from Slave Narratives -- prepared by Steven Mintz. Only documents 1-2,10-14 are required.
Slavery Bibliography (part 1 -- prepared by Steven Mintz)
Slavery Bibliography (part 2 -- prepared by Steven Mintz)
North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920. An outstanding library Web site, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Library. "'North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920' documents the individual and collective story of the African American struggle for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When completed, it will include all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920 and many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves published in English before 1920."

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know: Plantation slavery; West Africa; factors; slave trade; French Royal African Company; Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave; Frederick Douglas; Stanley Elkins (Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 1959); John Blassingame (The Slave Community, 1972); Eugene Genovese (Roll, Jordan, Roll, 1974); Cliometrics; Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman (Time on the Cross, 1974; "black work ethic"; slave culture; Protestant/Anglo Saxon work ethic; "industrial time"; "preindustrial time"; WPA (Works Progress Administration).

REQUIRED READING: "Slavery and the Transition to Free Labor," in Major Problems in the History of American Workers, pp. 200-214.

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Organization and Principles of the Ku Klux Klan, 1868
Booker T. Washington's Views on Race, Economics, and Social Progress
B. T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) and selections from Up from Slavery (1901)
Up From Slavery The complete text of Booker T. Washington's autobiography.
Mary Church Terrell on African-American Women in the Post-Reconstruction Era (1898)
"The Progress of Colored Women," by Mary Church Terrell, President, National Association of Colored Women. An address delivered before the National American Women's Suffrage Association at the Columbia Theater, Washington, D.C., February 18, 1898.
Selections from W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks, 1903
Voices from the 1930s (The WPA Life Histories Collection) The Life Histories Collection is part of the U.S. Work Progress Administration Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records Survey.
"Reminiscence of a Negro Preacher" (1939). One item from the above collection.
Rural Blacks in Post-Reconstruction South Carolina: Mattie Hammond Harrell's Story (1938). Another selection from the Life Histories Collection.
A Black North Carolina Tenant Farmer's Life (1938). Yet another selection from the WPA Life Histories Collection.
Audio -- 8 1/2 minutes. Interviews on sharecropping and tenant farming. (1984) Charles Hardy III interviews with Minnie Whitney, William Robinson, and Hughsey Childes (selections). Source: Atwater Kent Museum (Philadelphia), 1984.
Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

Southern freedmen; Ned Cobb; Reconstruction; Eric Foner; Sea Islands; Gideon's Band/Gideonites; Port Royal; Radical Republicans; Gen. William T. Sherman; Special Order No. 15; "slave crops"; paternalistic ethos; Freedmen's Bureau; "free labor ideology"; "standing wages"; "share wage system"; "gang system"; "task system"; sharecropping; tenant farming; crop lien; Ku Klux Klan; National Association of Colored Women; Booker T. Washington; B. T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address; Up From Slavery.

Film/Video: "1877: Grand Army of Starvation" [To be shown in class]

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know: Thomas Skidmore; Karl Marx;The Communist Manifesto (1848); proletariat; relations of production; bourgeoisie; scientific socialism; utopian socialism; Fourierism; Owenism; The Great Strike of 1877; Knights of Labor; "robber barons"; Cornelius Vanderbilt; "Gilded Age"; Jay Cooke; the 1873 depression; "tramps"; the "Molly Maguiers"; Trainmen's Union; Brotherhood of Engineers; Albert Parsons; Workingmen's Party of the United State (WPUS); Paris Commune of 1871; Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes; American Federation of Labor.

REQUIRED READING: pp. 171-176 (documents); 191-200 (Herbert Gutman); 275-317 ("Cultures of the Workplace") in Major Problems in the History of American Workers.

Film/Video: "The River Ran Red" [To be shown in class]

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Home Page of the Steel Industry Heritage Corporation. Assorted historical materials on the steel industry and the 1892 Homestead Strike
History of the United Steelworkers of America

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: Out of this Furnace, parts I - III (pp. 1-258)

Anti-Chinese Editorial from 1874, San Franciso Real Estate Circular
An Overview of Immigration During the Industrial Era -- Stanley Schultz's Lecture Outline (U. of Wisconsin)

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; 1906 "Gentleman's Agreement"; George Kracha; the "new" immigration; yellow dog contract; Braddock; Mike Dobrejcak; "Fort Frick"; Alexander Berkman; "turns"; "Stint"; "Hunky"; J. P. Morgan; stock purchase plan; Depression of 1907; Mary Dobrejcak; Depression of 1921; AFL; "Blackjack"; boarding/boarders; Austria-Hungary; temperance movement; credit purchasing.

REQUIRED READING: pp. 229-250; 258-273 in Major Problems in the History of American Workers.

Selection from Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor (1925).
Samuel Gompers -- Papers and Biographical Material.
An Overview of Labor Organizations in the Late 19th and Early 20 Centuries. Stanley Schultz's Lecture Outline (U. of Wisconsin).

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

trade unionism; labor reform; Knights of Labor; Terence Powderly; Uriah Stevens; reform unionism; FOOTALU (or FOTLU); Pullman Strike of 1894; American Railway Union (ARU); John P. Altgeld; closed shop; open shop; business unionism; "pure and simple unionism"; American Federation of Labor; Samuel Gompers; Adolph Strasser; Haymarket Square "Riot" (1886); anarchism.

REQUIRED READING: 1) Stewart Bird, et al., Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW, pp. 1-74. [On reserve in Ten Broeck]; 2) pp. 235-239 in Major Problems in the History of American Workers.

FIRST PAPER/PROJECT DUE

Film/Video: "The Wobblies" [Selections shown in class. Also available at IMC: VidCas HD 8055 W63X 1980]

Daniel DeLeon Read Reform or Revolution? (1896) and the editorial "Industrial Unionism" (1913).
IWW Links
Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). Read editor's introduction and Chapters 1 and 5.
Emma Goldman Archives and Biographical Materials. Take a look at the online exhibit on Goldman, especially material up to World War I.
Miscellaneous documents on the WWW.
Review of Sally M. Miller's Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Early Twentieth-Century American Socialism (1966)
Eugene V. Debs (1904 presidential campaign speech -- audio file)
Memories of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Selection from Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography, My First Life (1906-1926)
Mary Licht, Rebel Girl: The Revolutionary Life and Work of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn(People's Weekly World, March 30, 1996).
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Bibliography.
IWW Photographs -- including some of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Colleen O'Neill, "Domesticity Deployed:� Gender, Race, and the Construction of Class Struggle in the Bisbee Deportation," �Labor History, 34(Spring-Summer 1993), 256-273.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, SABOTAGE (1916)

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

Edward Bellamy; Looking Backward; Daniel DeLeon; Eugene V. debs; socialism; IWW; Western Federation of Miners; syndicalism; anarchism; Industrial Democracy, Wobblies, The Little Red Song Book, Bindlestiffs, the A.W.O.; William Haywood; Mother Jones; Bolshevik Revolution; Lawrence Strike of 1912; Paterson Silkworkers Strike (1913); sabotage; free speech movement; "the Rebel Girl"; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; sedition trials of WWI; A. Mitchell Palmer; Palmer raids; "little red Henski."

REQUIRED READING: 1) Meredith Tax, "The Uprising of Thirty Thousand" in Unequal Sisters, pp. 203-227; 2) Kathy Peiss, "Dance Madness: New York City Dance halls and Working-Class Sexuality, 1900-1920" in Charles Stephenson and David Asher, Life and Labor

Child Labor in America, 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine.
This commercial site presents some of the most famous photographs of Lewis W. Hine�taken between 1908 and 1912�documenting the exploitation of children in early 20th century industrial America. Hine (1874-1940) is one of the founders of modern documentary photography and the photographs showcased at this site illustrate why his reputation is so immense; they are powerful and moving, and beautifully reproduced here with stunning clarity and contrast. Along with the photographs which contain Hine's original captions, there is a short essay about the photographer, as well as the history of child labor in the United States.
Biography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Short Biographical Profile of Mother Jones
The Uprising of Twenty Thousand. University at Binghamton WWW Site: "The documents in this project date from the brief period between December 1909 to February 1910. During these three months more than 20,000 shirtwaist workers went out on strike and unionization in the women's clothing industry made great strides. . . . This project focuses on relations among strikers, the strike's wealthy women supporters, and socialist activists. The documents speak to two related questions: what were the relations between striking shirtwaist workers and their elite women supporters and what was the impact of socialism on those relations? Primary sources, drawn mainly from New York newspapers, help to tell the story of the shirtwaist strike."
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 -- Web Exhibit Maintained by the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University.
Charlotte Perkins Stetman Gilman, Herland (1915)

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: 1) "Class, Race, and Ethnicity, 1917-21," chapter 6 of James R. Barret's, Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922.

Films/Videos: Selections from "The Killing Floor" and "Matewan" will be shown in class. Both are available at IMC. I highly recommend viewing the full versions when you get a chance, especially if you are contemplating a paper on the subject.

Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890) A classic work on immigrants, immigrant communities, and New York's urban ghettoes by Jacob Riis (1849-1914).
N.Y.S. Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities (Lusk Committee). Introduction to the printed guide to the records of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, giving background information on the Committee.
Example 1: Original Scanned Informant's Report Sent to the Lusk Committee. This document is directly drawn from Prof. Gerald Zahavi's research on labor and radicalism in America. It, and the ones that follow, profile post-WWI radicalism in Broome County, New York. Broome County radicals were a divided lot in late 1919. This division--shared by many of their comrades across the nation--reflected the strength of ethnic and national chauvinisms, the general crisis in American socialism precipitated by World War I, and the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The vast majority of the County's radicals were right wing socialists, but there was also a substantial pro-Bolshevik left-wing. Local socialists were organized into a number of foreign language federations -- Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Russian, and so on. This document is a report on pro-Bolshevik Lithuanians active in Binghamton N.Y. [Source: N.Y. State Archives]
Example 2: Original Scanned Informant's Report Sent to the Lusk Committee. An informant's report on a recent Socialist Party meeting in Binghamton. It was written by Julia Preston, a Binghamton Press reporter fluent in a number of East European languages. Preston, a right-wing socialist who detested pro-Bolshevik left-wingers, attended many local socialist meetings. Little did her comrades know that she was sending regular reports on their activities to the state legislature. Preston identified herself in her correspondence as agent 100. [Source: N.Y. State Archives]
Example 3: Original Scanned Informant's Report Sent to the Lusk Committee. Here's another report by Julia Preston (agent 100), this time with a fascinating profile of the cultural world of Slovak radicals. [Source: N.Y. State Archives]
Transcribed Versions of Informants' Reports and Correspondence Sent to the Lusk Committee. Here are more informant reports, this time from A. Adomaitis, along with correspondence from the Chief Investigator of the Lusk Committee and Binghamton attorneys responsible for relaying the reports to the Committee.
Selection from 1921 FBI File on Broome County, NY Radicals A fascinating account of religious conflicts, Endicott radicals, and George F. Johnson, head of the Endicott-Johnson Company. E-J was a shoe manufacturing firm with plants in Endicott, Johnson City, and Binghamton, N.Y.
Red Scare, Broome County, I. An article in the Binghamton Press from 1919, illustrating the erosion of civil liberties during the red scare years.
Red Scare, Broome County, II. Two articles from the Binghamton Press from 1919. More examples of the erosion of civil liberties.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

FILMS/VIDEOS: "Up South" will be shown in class. "THE KILLING FLOOR" will be shown in TB-02 on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. From now on, longer, feature-length videos will be shown on Wednesday mornings in Ten Broeck for optional viewing. I'll try to be there for these showings; if I can't, either Matt or another History graduate student will be present. If you can't make it, we may be able to schedule individual viewings in my office suite (we now have a video production area set up).

Thursday, Oct. 30: Controlling Workers: Scientific Management and Welfare Capitalism

RECOMMENDED READING: 1) Stephen Meyer, "The Making of Ford's Assembly Line," and Susan Porter Benson, "Taylorizing the Shopgirl," in Major Problems in the History of American Workers, pp. 333-360.

Films/Videos: "Clockwork" (To be shown in class) & "Modern Times" (selection) ["Modern Times" is a Chaplin classic and is available at most video stores.]

Selection from Sam Salvatore [Endicott-Johnson Corp. worker] interview by Gerald Zahavi, July 7, 1981 (audio file)
Transcription of 1927 meeting between EJ head George F. Johnson and striking edge trimmers.
A discussion of F. Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management.
A very short biography and discussion of Frederick W. Taylor.
Access to the F. W. Taylor archives -- on line! Approximately 800 documents available for primary source research.
Brief introduction to Sanford M. Jacoby, a recent scholar who has written extensively on welfare capitalism. Includes references to his works.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women," Journal of American History.

RECOMMENDED READING: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, et al., Like a Family : The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World, pp. 289-363.

Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones, "Civilization in Southern Mills," International Socialist Review, March, 1901.
Comprehensive Bibliography on Appalachia.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: 1) "Industrial Unionism During the Great Depression," (chap. 9) in Major Problems in the History of American Workers; 2) Out of this Furnace, Part IV (259-end); 3) "'Who's Going to Dance With Somebody Who Calls You a Mainstreeter': Communism, Culture and Community in Sheridan County, Montana, 1918-1934," Great Plains Quarterly, 16 (Fall 1996): 251-286. .

Film/Video: Selection from the PBS series, "The Great Depression" or "Seeing Red" [To be shown in class]

Selections from Studs Terkel's oral history of the Great Depression.
An account of the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-37." An Introduction to Sol Dollinger: The Flint "Sit-Down" for Beginners by Charlie Post
Voices from the 1930s (The WPA Life Histories Collection) The Life Histories Collection is part of the U.S. Work Progress Administration Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records Survey. From the home page of the collection, you can conduct subject searches and extract interviews on specific issues.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle.

Steinbeck Research Center (San Jose State University) Information about John Steinbeck. Steinbeck wrote extensively about California agricultural workers.
Audio File: Sam Darcy interview, Feb. 2, 1992. Long selection from a recorded interview conducted by Nelson Pichardo on February 1, 1992, from the archives of the Oral History Program, University at Albany. Darcy was the California District Organizer for the Communist Party in the early 1930s and was heavily involved in leading the efforts to organize California farmworkers. 1 hour 2 minutes long.
Audio file: "Talking Farmwork Blues." Selections from a two-part series on California Agricultural workers, produced by Margo McBane (date of production uncertain). 32 minutes long.

REQUIRED READING: Edited interviews with Stella Nowicki and Sylvia Woods, from Alice and Staughton Lynd, eds., Rank and File: Personal Histories by Working-Class Organizers (Princeton Univ. Press, 1973). [On reserve at Ten Broeck]

Film/Video: "With Babies and Banners" [To be shown in class]

Also "Union Maids" [selections, video available at IMC].

Audio file: "On The Line: Radical Women in the Labor Movement." Part three (3) of a six-part series on radical women's activism in the 1930s. Produced by WBAI-FM and the Oral History of the American Left, Tamiment Institute Library, New York University, New York, N.Y. No date. Project Directors: Paul and Mari Jo Buhle, Oral Historians: Jon Bloom & Bea Lemisch. Project Coordinator: Ruth Prago. Mixed by Steven Erickson. Produced by Beth Friend and Charles Potter. 30 minutes long.

REQUIRED READING:Major Problems in the History of American Workers, pp. 462-467; 471-495.

Film/Video: "Rosie the Riveter" [To be shown in class]

Film SEEING RED will be shown at Ten Broeck (come to Rm. 202) at 9:45 a.m. and at 3 p.m. Students may also make other arrangements with me.

World Wide Web Sites/Documents:

Helen Quirini's WW II-Era Diary -- Selections.

REQUIRED READING: Major Problems in the History of American Workers, pp. 496-503; 506-539.

REQUIRED READING: Gerald Zahavi, "Passionate Commitements: Race, Sex, and Communism at Schenectady General Electric, 1932-1954," Journal of American History, 83 (September 1996): 514:548; Also, selections from the script of "Salt of the Earth" (handout).

Film: "SALT OF THE EARTH." Selections shown in class. Copy on reserve in my office.

Audio file: Jules Schwerin, Assistant Director and production manager of the film Salt of the Earth, speaks about the production of the film. Recorded December 1, 1994 at the University at Albany. Introduction by Prof. Gerald Zahavi. Time: 47 minutes, 11 seconds.

Project: Second WWW assignment due. Locate five Web sites pertaining to the labor history of a particular decade (as discussed in class). Hand in a page or two with the URLs of the WWW sites and a paragraph desribing the content of each site.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

Videos -- to be shown in class: Selections from the following series -- LIFE OF RILEY (1949); THE HONEYMOONERS (1955); THE FLINSTONES (1960); JULIA (1968); ALL IN THE FAMILY (1971); LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY (1976); ROSEANNE (1988); THE SIMPSONS (1990); Also, selections from the films: ON THE WATERFRONT, HOFFA, NINE TO FIVE, WORKING GIRL, AND MORE.

World Wide Web Sites:

Segment summaries and more on the Honeymooners (1955).
An excellent web page discussing the TV show Laverne & Shirley (1976) and its depiction of working women.
ALL IN THE FAMILY (1971) web site, with segment summaries.

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

REQUIRED READING: 1) Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (read first half of book); 2) Selection from interviews with Kurt Vonnegut [handout]

RECOMMENDED READING: Chapter 14 (pp. 579-633) in Major Problems in the History of the History of American Workers.

Film: "ROGER AND ME." Selections shown in class. Copy on reserve in my office.

REQUIRED READING: 1) Finish Player Piano; 2) Major Problems in the History of the History of American Workers, pp. 567-578 and chapter 15 ("The Future of Work").

RECOMMENDED READING: Major Problems in the History of the History of American Workers, pp. 540-567.

Recommended Films/Videos: "Minimum Wages: The New Economy," "Company Town," and "The Global Assembly Line." These films may be screened in Ten Breock. Make arrangements with me if you are interested.

Opening Plenary Session: Introductory remarks. "The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary speeches and selective workshop sessions. Tapes courtesy of WRPI (Troy), University at Albany History and Media Project, and Thad Russell. Original tapes held by the Oral History Program, University at Albany, Albany, N.Y. Speeches by Columbia University President George Rupp, Steve Fraser, and Eric Foner -- including introduction to Betty Friedan's speech which follows. (October 3, 1996). [28:12 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Opening Plenary Session: Speech by Betty Friedan (October 3, 1996) [14:47 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Opening Plenary Session: Speech by Richard Rorty (University of Virginia) (October 3, 1996) [16:38 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Opening Plenary Session: Speech by Patricia Williams (Columbia University) (October 3, 1996) [18:07 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Opening Plenary Session: Speech by John Sweeney, Pres. AFL-CIO (October 3, 1996) [30:49 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Opening Plenary Session: Speech by Cornell West (Harvard University) and conclusion of opening plenary session (October 3, 1996) [28:34 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2, "The Incorporation of America" -- Introductory Remarks (October 4, 1996). Remarks by Josh Freeman (Columbia University), Brian McLaughlin (Pres. of the NYC Central Labor Council), and Ira Katznelson (Columbia University). Also Katznelson's introduction of first speaker, Linda Chavez-Thompson. [14:08 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2. Speech by Linda Chavez-Thompson (Executive Vice-President, AFL-CIO) (October 4, 1996). [19:09 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2. Introduction of, and speech by Orlando Patterson (Harvard University) (October 4, 1996). [19:15 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2. Introduction of, and speech by Katha Pollitt (Writer, The Nation) (October 4, 1996). [19:58 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2. Introduction of, and speech by Joel Rogers (University of Wisconsin, Madison) (October 4, 1996). [25:34 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #2. Concluding remarks by Ira Katznelson and Josh Freeman (October 4, 1996). [3:10 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Plenary Session #3. Whole session. Individual speeches will soon appear below as separate files. Speakers include: Manning Marable, Chair (Columbia University), Francis Fox Piven (City University of New York), Karen Nussbaum (Women's Department, AFL-CIO), Jose LaLuz (Intl. Area Director, AFSCME), David Montgomery (Yale University), Richard Trumka (Sec.-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO). (October 4, 1996). [2 hrs, 19 minutes]

"The Fight for America's Future: A Teach-In with the Labor Movement," held October 3-4, 1996 at Columbia University, NYC. Labor teach-in workshop on Culture, Identity and Class Politics. Moderated by Nelson Lichtenstein (U. of Virginia). Speeches by Todd Gitlin (NYU), Robin D. G. Kelley (NYU), and Jo-Ann Mort (UNITE) (October 4, 1996). [1 hr, 43 minutes]

Key Terms, Concepts, Names to know:

LAST PAPER/PROJECT IS DUE DECEMBER 12!

RETURN TO TOP OF COURSE SYLLABUS

This page maintained by:
Prof. Gerald Zahavi
Department of History
202-2 Ten Broeck Hall
University at Albany
Albany, N.Y. 12222
Tel. #: (518) 442-4780
Email: gz580@csc.albany.edu