Books and films

A Spirit of Revolt: Conrado Alvillar and the Rank-and-File Wobblies of the 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike

“A deeply researched, innovative, and passionate history of the rank-and-file activists behind one of the most important labor strikes of America’s ‘roaring twenties.’ Gonzales unearths the lives and struggles of a generation of long-forgotten men and women in Colorado’s coal fields who revolted against intolerable conditions to demand a better world.”…

Capturing Labor: A History of Unfree Work in the Southwest

A collection of essays grappling with the many, often overlooked, forms of unfree labor in the West. When Americans think of unfree labor—coerced, extracted from workers unable to freely enter and exit contracts—what comes to mind is Black slavery and peonage in the South.

Labor Unions and American Mass Politics

A comprehensive exploration of how labor unions, broadly conceived, shape party loyalties in the American mass public. How and why do labor unions matter for American mass party loyalties, specifically party identification and vote choice?

Matewan: Blood and Coal

One of the latest releases from Hardball Press, Matewan is a new fictionalized take on the events of Matewan, West Virginia, in the coal wars of the 1920s—one of America’s most explosive labor conflicts, where, the publisher writes, “courage is measured in sacrifice, and history is written in blood.” Corley, a history teacher, says of the book, based on…

Maximum Leverage: From the Street to the Picket Line

This is the story of the two lives of Phil Cohen. The first is about childhood in the mean streets of New York City and then his early life as a young adult as a gypsy cab driver in neighborhoods too dangerous for regular cabs, and eventually to managing a cheap hotel, where he helps the impoverished residents with law enforcement, health care, and welfare.

Song for a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner’s Daughter

This is a memoir of Appalachia, a region often stereotyped as “a place to escape from, where people are hateful, lazy, and bring tragedy upon themselves.” Beth Howard has a different story to tell, both in growing up there and in an unlooked for history of the place. Howard shares the emotional wounds her childhood left her with, but also realizes the…

The Wage Standard: What’s Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It

Arindrajit Dube sets out to explain why workers at the bottom and in the middle have experienced wage stagnation in the last 40 years. And he discovers a series of labor market policies that have led to our K-shaped economy.

Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy: Building a Progressive Labor Movement

In Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy, Kim Scipes dives deep into the historical intricacies of labor organizing, focusing on the struggles against white supremacy and racism in the workplace, union, and respective communities in and around Chicago, including Northwest Indiana. Comparing unions in the steel and meatpacking industries during the critical…

Working-Class Girls Don’t Become Artists: Looking at Art and Class

Working-Class Studies pioneer Janet Zandy profiles nine artists whose work “aligns with the history and living conditions of working-class people”: Kathe Kollwitz, Elizabeth Catlett, Ruth Asawa, Marilyn Anderson, Milton Rogovin, Mark Rogovin, Jens S. Jensen, Ralph Fasanella, and Raymond Mason.

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America

This is a best-selling book about working-class life in one small Ohio town 40 years ago and now, and the history of that one town reveals a fractured American landscape that is widespread but seldom seen. Beth Macy grew up in Urbana, Ohio, and was a paper girl delivering the daily newspaper to people’s homes.