Tag: labor history

I Repeat Myself When Under Stress

By Erik Loomis

In General

On February 22, 2021

I’m giving a virtual public talk on labor history Thursday evening at 6 eastern for the Rhode Island Historical Society that uses the Brown and Sharpe Strike here in the 1980s as a entrypoint into a broader discussion of the decline of the labor movement in the late 20th century. It’s open to the public […]

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Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 284

By Erik Loomis

On July 18, 2018

This is the grave of the Haymarket Martyrs. The events of the Haymarket bombing are fairly well known and I’ve written them up, so you can read it for the basic background. Buried in the Haymark

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A History of America in Ten Strikes

By Erik Loomis

On July 8, 2018

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve been working on my next book, A History of America in Ten Strikes. Well, it’s being published by The New Press in October. Some advance reviews ar

Labor Historians, the White Working Class, and Trump Voters

By Erik Loomis

In General

On September 2, 2017

Jefferson Cowie has an excellent essay on how labor historians totally missed Trump. And he’s right–it’s that way too many labor historians have huge ideological blinders that romanticize working class activism and dissent while refusing to recognize that often those very same people are racist Trump voters. The new labor history splintered in dozens of […]

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A Little Help From My Friends. Or Whatever You People Are.

By Erik Loomis

On June 14, 2017

Imagine a scenario with me, if you will. I would like to take my labor history posts and turn them into a website and app that would create the possibility for labor history tourism around the country

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Ten Great Labor History Books

By Erik Loomis

On January 6, 2016

Miners coming out of mine shaft, Virginia City, Nevada, 1867 Backlist asked me to submit a list of ten books on U.S. labor history I would recommend for a broader audience. It is here, with explanatio

Labor History in the Classroom

By Erik Loomis

In General

On May 19, 2015

Above: Strikers in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1949 While right-wing states are freaking out about the new AP standards (never mind that this year’s AP US History DBQ was on the rise of the conservative movement), Connecticut has now passed a bill encouraging the teaching of labor history in the state’s classrooms, albeit with a caveat to […]

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Labor Historians and the Labor Movement

By Erik Loomis

On August 8, 2013

I was asked to provide a write-up of a panel at the Labor and Working Class History Association meeting on the Chicago Teachers Union struggle. It gave me an opportunity to muse a bit about the relati