This week marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Michigan copper strike of 1913-14, made famous by the Calumet Massacre, where a company thug's call of "Fire!" during a Christmas Eve party led to a stampeded against a door held shut from the...
Gilded Age
In this day of modern technology, you can follow the Battle of Gettysburg minute by minute 150 years later. You can follow the War of 1812 200 years later. And.
On June 21, 1877, ten alleged members of the Molly Maguires, an Irish secret society blamed for labor radicalism in the anthracite country of Pennsylvania, were executed. The Molly Maguires.
On May 12, 1902, coal miners in Pennsylvania's anthracite fields went on strike. There were many strikes in the coal fields during the Gilded Age, but this one has special significance because the refusal of the industry to negotiate pushed the strike into the fall...
Building off my Chinese Exclusion Act post from the other day, here is a good example of pure, unadulterated anti-Chinese racism, from the New York Times, August 26, 1885. In.
The title for greatest beard in American history goes to one Peter Cooper, 1876 Greenback Party candidate for president. I don't see how the competition for this title even comes.
On May 6, 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although not often seen by the general public as part of our labor history, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first legislative victory for organized labor in this country. It generated out...
On May 3, 1911, Wisconsin created the first workers compensation program, followed almost immediately by Washington and most of the Northwestern states. This was the beginning of a system, albeit.
Matt Yglesias had an odd response to my post yesterday calling for American corporations to be held to American labor standards no matter where in the world they site their.
Have you ever wanted to see a detailed brothel menu from 1912, with extremely graphic detail about the services provided? Well, here's your chance. This might be the most amazing historical document I have ever seen. Here's another link if the first isn't working
As a historian of the Gilded Age, the sequester is very exciting to me. With each passing day, a big leap back to the halcyon days of the 1890s seems.
On February 13, 1865, the Sons of Vulcan, the first American union in iron and steel, ended its strike, leading to the first union contract in American history. The Sons.