Working Class in American History: Civic Labors (ePub)

Labor studies scholars and working-class historians have long worked at the crossroads of academia and activism. The essays in this collection examine the challenges and opportunities for engaged scholarship in the United States and abroad. A diverse roster of contributors discuss how participation in current labor and social struggles guides their campus and community organizing, public history initiatives, teaching, mentoring, and other activities. They also explore the role of research and scholarship in social change, while acknowledging that intellectual labor complements but never replaces collective action and movement building. Contributors: Kristen Anderson, Daniel E. Atkinson, James R. Barrett, Susan Roth Breitzer, Susan Chandler, Sam Davies, Dennis Deslippe, Eric Fure-Slocum, Colin Gordon, Michael Innis-Jiménez, Stephanie Luce, Joseph A. McCartin, John W. McKerley, Matthew M. Mettler, Stephen Meyer, David Montgomery, Kim E. Nielsen, Peter Rachleff, Ralph Scharnau, Jennifer Sherer, Shelton Stromquist, Emily E. LB. Twarog, and John Williams-Searle.|
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Challenges of Engaged Scholarship and Teaching / Dennis Deslippe, Eric Fure-Slocum, and John W. McKerley
1. Labor Historians and Traditions of Engaged Scholarship: Progressives, Insurgents, and the Making of a New Labor History / Shelton Stromquist
Part I. Encountering Conflict, Power, and Hope: On the Front Line
Introduction / John Williams-Searle
2. Beyond Yeshiva: The Struggle for Faculty Power at the University of Dubuque / Ralph Scharnau
3. "Feets Don't Fail Me Now": Navigating an Unpaved, Rocky Road to, through, and from the Last Slave Plantation / Daniel E. Atkinson
4. Wandering through the Wisconsin Uprising / Stephen Meyer
5. Immigrants in a Disaster Zone: Teaching, Learning, and Advocating Alabama's New Civil Rights Movement / Michael Innis-Jiménez
6. Remembering the 1911 General Transport Strike in Liverpool / Sam Davies
Part II. Connecting Classrooms and Communities: Education, Outreach, and Engagement
Introduction / Matthew M. Mettler
7. The Great Unspoken: Teaching and Learning Working-Class History from the Seminar Room to the Union Hall / James R. Barrett
8. Teaching Labor History on the Middle Ground: Connecting the Campus, the Union Hall, and the Community / Peter Rachleff
9. The Difference a Union Makes: Graduate Employee Activists' Engaged Scholarship and Their Working Lives / Susan Roth Breitzer
10. Making History Every Day: The Iowa Labor History Oral Project and Popular Education / Jennifer Sherer
11. The Polk School: Intersections of Women's Labor Leadership Education and the Public Sphere / Emily E. LB. Twarog
Part III. Bridging Scholarship and Activism:
Introduction / Kristen Anderson
12. Launching the Kalmanovitz Initiative: A Labor Historian's Labor History / Joseph A. McCartin
13. My Life as a Wonk / Colin Gordon
14. "The Soul Puts Together Its Pieces": Lessons from the Casino Floor / Susan Chandler
15. Disability and Labor Activism: The Pains and Joys of Coalitions / Kim E. Nielsen
16. Engaged Scholarship and the Living-Wage Movement / Stephanie Luce
Epilogue. Carry It On!: Creative Research and Social Action / David Montgomery
Contributors
Index|Dennis Deslippe is an associate professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Franklin and Marshall College. He is the author of "Rights, not Roses": Unions and the Rise of Working-Class Feminism, 1945-1980. Eric Fure-Slocum is an associate professor of history at St. Olaf College and the author of Contesting the Postwar City: Working-Class and Growth Politics in 1940s Milwaukee . John W. McKerley is a research associate at the University of Iowa...