Part 2: Working for Their Lives

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Activity 2A.1: Sitting Down in Flint: A Case Study

Oral history audio clips of Flint, Michigan autoworkers’ strike

Flint Sit-Down Strike Audio Timeline: www.historicalvoices.org/flint/timeline-main.html

Flint Sit-Down Strike Audio Gallery: www.historicalvoices.org/flint/organization.php,
 www.historicalvoices.org/flint/#

Historical photographs of Flint, Michigan autoworkers’ strike

United Auto Workers (UAW).  UAW History, including sit down strikes at GM and Chrysler in Flint and Detroit.  www.uaw.org/node/271

Grevatt, Martha. “70 years ago workers won Flint sit-down strike.” Workers World.  www.workers.org/2007/us/flint-0308/

Activity 2A.2: Choosing a Labor Event

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: www2.ucsc.edu/resnet/res-includes/hilte/results.php

The Molly Maguires:  www.providence.edu/polisci/students/molly_maguires/

The Homestead Strike:  www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande04.html

The Triangle Factory Fire:  www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/

Schneirov, Richard. The Pullman Strike and Boycott:  http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/pullman/events3.html

A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum:  https://aprpullmanportermuseum.org

Tye, Larry. (2004). Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class. New York: Henry Holt.

Neeley, Lyn. (1998, January 29). Bread & Roses: The Strike Led and Won by Women. Workers World.  www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45b/073.html

Dublin, Thomas (Ed.) (1981). Farm to Factory: Women’s Letters, 1830-1860.
New York: Columbia University Press.

Ehrlich, Matt, Cord Brundage, and Sylvia Gassaway. Ludlow Massacre. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/ludlow/

Andrews, Thomas G. (2008). Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Waterfront Worker’s History Project: http://depts.washington.edu/dock/34strike_intro.shtml

The Big Strike: Labor Unrest in the Great Depression: www.ashp.cuny.edu/investigatinghistory/m10b.html

Teaching with Documents: Court Documents related to Martin Luther King, Jr., Memphis Sanitation Workers:  www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/

Exploring the United Farm Workers’ History: http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/grape-boycott/History.html

1981 Strike Leaves Legacy for American Workers:  www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5604656

The Pittston Coal Strike:  www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/lee3-hold.htm

“Time Trail” West Virginia Archives and History:  www.wvculture.org/history/timetrl/ttfeb.html

Activity 2B.1: Assembling Character Biographies

Primary Sources: Diaries, Letters, Oral Histories of Workers

Dublin, Thomas (Ed.) (1981). Farm to Factory: Women’s Letters, 1830-1860.
New York: Columbia University Press.

Terkel, Studs. (1972). Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. New York: Random House.  Particularly Phil Stallings, spot-welder; Jim Grayson, spot-welder; Tom Brand, plant manager; Wheeler Stanley, general foreman; and Gary Bryner, president, Lordstown Local, UAW, from “The Making,” pp. 159–194.

Waterfront Worker’s History Project:  http://depts.washington.edu/dock/34strike_intro.shtml

Television and Film Character Biographies

Muldur, Fox William. The X-Files Lexicon:  http://www.x-fileslexicon.com/dossiers/fox_mulder.html

Lost/Characters. The TV IV:  http://www.losttvfans.com/page/Characters

Labor Songs and Symbols

Classic labor songs from Smithsonian Folkways.  www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Smithsonian-Folkways-Classic-Labor-Songs-from-Smithsonian-Folkways-MP3-Download/10921135.html

Labor Songs. American Labor Studies Center.   http://www.labor-studies.org/featured-resources/labor-songs/

Parker Sherwood, Susan. A Brief History of Labor Symbols.

Look for the Union Label: A Celebration of Union Logos and Emblems: 
http://130.212.18.164/exhibits/labels/default.php

Photographys. American Labor Studies Center.  http://www.labor-studies.org/by-labor-topic/cultural-resources/posters/labor-photos/