What LGM Has Done For Me and For You (I Hope)
By 
It’s probably clear by now that my strategy for fundraising day is mostly just ridiculousness, though I do love that Luther Insult Generator.
But really, I do think it’s worth a seriousish conversation about what LGM has meant for me in the 14 years I’ve written here and what it might mean to you. Now, I am well aware of the person I am and I do not value being nice to people when they are wrong. That bothers some people a lot. I don’t care one way or the other. But…can we leave this aside and just mention real quick what you get here, and this is just from me.
First, the grave series is almost certainly the single longest serious series in the history of the entire internet, probably globally. It is 100% the longest running historical series that does real work. Can we think about that for a minute? Almost every single day, you get a grave post that allows for a window into the past, which you all often use to make connections to present issues, as I hope you do. Of course, covering a baseball player is different than a Civil War guy, but each allows us some reason to talk about the past and the present.
Second, most of the days when you don’t get a grave post, you get a This Day in Labor History post. This is also an astoundingly lengthy series, nearing 600 posts. This is my way of reinterpreting the work of scholars in a way that is useful to the general public. A few of these are based on my own research and almost all have my own take on the issue, but most of them are working from other folks, who are awesome scholars but don’t have the venue that I do to disseminate knowledge. There’s a few labor history things on the internet, but not the kind of romance-free analysis of the labor movement that I provide and sometimes annoy labor folks who love to romanticize the IWW and anarchists.
Third, you get an almost weekly music post filled with brief and perhaps unsatisfactory discussions of new albums, but it’s at least a way to talk about music. As it turns out, LGM readers are really freaking knowledgeable about music, with several quite well known music historians and critics as commenters and lots more who are readers.
Fourth, and I admit I’ve slacked on this recently–sorry I am such a lazy human–there is the LGM Film Club, a way to discuss everything from big releases to weird video footage to silent film.
Fifth, there is the labor coverage, which I think is as good as anywhere else on the internet.
Sixth, there’s all the other stuff–debating the future of the Democratic Party, pointing out this or that horrible Trump action, reminding you that you are a disgusting hypocrite for creating another generation of racial inequality through the school choices for your kids, and of course college football open threads every Saturday in the fall.
Out of all this has been the core of three of my four books, including my forthcoming Organizing America. A History of America in Ten Strikes of course came from the labor history series and Out of Sight came out of my analysis of globalzation and labor. Much of Organizing America was generated from the grave series.
Like all of it or not, and it’s OK to not like all of it, LGM and 14 years of writing archives has provided me an immense compendium of work to build on. And the comments have really helped me work these things out, even the hostile ones that I respond to in frequent follow up posts.
In short, you all have contributed significantly to the somewhat unique position I have bridging academia and the popular press, which is not unprecedented, but is in fact unique in the sense that I may have a bigger footprint than any labor historian despite have zero training in American labor history at any level (I had a grad seminar in Latin American labor history once, but that’s the only labor history course I ever took in my life) and in the sense that I had to fight and struggle my entire life to get where I am, with degrees from public institutions often dismissed by snobby supposed leftists and everything that not having that background has meant.
You all have played a really important role in this. I’d hate to see it go away. It’s meant so much to me and I hope so much to you. And I haven’t even mentioned all my colleagues here who offer different ideas/expertise/etc.
The way to keep this alive is very simple: Money. Sorry, we live in a capitalist society. And I know how many of you are lawyers. Don’t pretend like you can’t do more to support this site.
Otherwise this goes away and my life is worse and your life is worse too. And if it helps, I only get a small percentage of donations so you can pretend all your money is going to the bloggers you like more than me.