Resources on Late Nineteenth-Century Labor History

I.                    Background Reading

·        Melvyn Dubofsky, Industrialization and the American Worker, 1865-1920, 3rd ed. (Harlan Davidson, 1996).  A well-written introductory college-level text that provides a good introduction to major themes in the labor history of the era of industrialization.

·        American Social History Project, Who Built America?  Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 2, Since 1877 (Worth Publishers, 2000).  A massive textbook that examines both working class social history as well as the history of the labor movement.

·        Herbert G. Gutman, "Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919," in Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (Alfred A. Knopf, 1976).  An annoyingly jargon-filled article that revolutionized the field of labor history by focusing attention on the cultural transition from pre-industrial to industrial society.

·        Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars:  Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890-1925  (Monthly Review Press, 1985).  An interesting study of the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society as experienced by Italian and Jewish immigrant women in New York City.

·        Joe William Trotter, Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-45 (University of Illinois Press, 1985).  A study of the process by which black migrants from the South were transformed from sharecroppers into modern industrial workers.

II.                 Films

·        1877: The Grand Army of Starvation (New York:  Cineffects Videotape, 1984).  A riveting account of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the most violent episode of labor strife in American History, which left over one hundred people dead.  Places the event in a broader social context.

·        The Bayview Massacre of 1886 (Wisconsin Labor History Society, 1986).  A brief film on the Bayview Massacre, in which Wisconsin State Militia opened fire on workers demanding the eight hour day.

III.               Other Resources

·        Darryl Holter, Workers and Unions in Wisconsin:  A Labor History Anthology (State History Society of Wisconsin, 1999).  A collection of short accessible pieces, many of which have a local focus.

·        Wisconsin Labor History Society Website (www.wisconsinlaborhistory.org).  Includes an extensive bibliography of published materials on Wisconsin labor history.

Revised 08/25/2008