San Antonio College Library

"These essays in American working-class and social history, in the words of their author "all share a common theme -- a concern to explain the beliefs and behavior of American working people in the several decades that saw this nation transformed into a powerful industrial capitalist society." The subjects range widely-from the Lowell, Massachusetts, mill girls to the patterns of violence in scattered railroad strikes prior to 1877 to the neglected...

"Over one hundred annotated primary documents present compelling and informative snapshots of the shifting and often contentious role played by workers and organized labor in American politics, economics, and history. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the history of worker's rights and labor relations often offers a grim picture of the pursuit of the American Dream. A narrative overview of...

In this illuminating survey of American labor from the 1820s to the present, Daniel Nelson looks for the reasons why union activity has ebbed and flowed since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Rather than simply summarizing other people's books, Mr. Nelson offers an original and provocative view of the union experience in America.

Investigates various aspects of the working-class experience, the intersections of class, race, gender, and ethnicity, in the struggle by the working class to improve its lot. Includes migration of African Americans to western Pennsylvania's industrial towns, the role of women and radicals in the first sit-down strikes, A. Philip Randolph's contributions to black American socialism, and the role of labor and radicals in the early civil rights movement....

"To most Americans, baseball is just a sport; but to those who own baseball teams - and those who play on them - our national pastime is much more than a game. In this book, Robert Burk traces the turbulent labor history of American baseball since 1921. His account details the many battles between owners and players that irrevocably altered the business of baseball."--Jacket.

Once a fundamental civic right, strikes are now constrained and contested. In an unusual and thought-provoking history, Josiah Bartlett Lambert shows how the ability to strike was transformed from a fundamental right that made the citizenship of working people possible into a conditional and commercialized function. Arguing that the executive branch, rather than the judicial branch, was initially responsible for the shift in attitudes about the necessity...