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Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention.
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Michelle Obama Was Right to Clap Back at Trump on 'Black Jobs'

The idea of "Black jobs" owes to 18th and 19th century divisions of labor designed to uphold slavery and white supremacy.
by Whitney Nell Stewart via Made By History on August 28, 2024
Crowd marches against high inflation and unemployment in 1973.

What Would Studs Terkel Make of 'Essential Workers'?

What American workers have lost since 1974 — and how some are getting it back.
by Robert Hennelly via Village Voice on August 9, 2024
Illustration of a man typing on his laptop on a rollercoaster ride.

Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
by Erik Baker via The New Yorker on May 1, 2024
Lebanese auto worker Eva Habib in her work coveralls in 1929.

Arab American Labor

On the centrality of the working classes to the Arab American immigrant experience and the pivotal roles Arab Americans played in American labor.
by Akram Khater, Chelsea Lundquist-Wentz, Nicole Ackman, Ginni Leeman, Lindsey Waldenberg via Khayrallah Center For Lebanese Diaspora Studies on September 4, 2023
Painting of a young boy working as an apprentice, wearing an apron

How Long Did the School Year Last in Early America?

Even throwing off of a colonial power, representative institutions, Protestantism, and local autonomy in school decisions did not produce an egalitarian system.
by Carole Shammas via Cambridge Core Blog on June 12, 2023
Scientists carrying a log by using straps around their heads.

1,000 Years Ago, Ancient Puebloans Built a Mysteriously Vast City. We May Finally Know How.

High up on the Colorado Plateau, in what is today the state of New Mexico, sit the remains of what was once a city of epic proportions.
by Carly Cassella via ScienceAlert on February 27, 2023
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln Is a Hero of the Left

Leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who helped vanquish chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today within the radical democratic tradition.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on February 20, 2023
An public work space

The Idea of Work, From Below

Ideas about working from the employee perspective.
by Joel Suarez via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on September 6, 2021

The Once and Future Temp

What can the history of the temp-work industry teach us about the precarity of modern working life?
by Eve Zelickson via Public Books on August 27, 2021
John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.
by Jake Maynard via Current Affairs on July 6, 2021
Newsies smoking at Skeeter's Branch.

Lewis Hine, Photographer of the American Working Class

Lewis Hine captured the misery, dignity, and occasional bursts of solidarity within US working-class life in the early twentieth century.
by Billy Anania via Jacobin on June 8, 2021
Galveston Central Wharf in 1861

Granger’s Juneteenth Orders and the Limiting of Freedom

To what extent did the Union general's famous orders actually liberate the enslaved in Texas?
by Edward S. Alexander via Emerging Civil War on June 23, 2020
Men observing teams of horses and mules.

Andrew Jackson and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

How the so-called champion of the common man set a precedent for using federal troops to quash labor unrest.
by Joshua D. Rothman via We're History on January 29, 2019

Factory Made

A history of modernity as a history of factories struggles to see beyond their walls.
by Padraic X. Scanlan via The New Inquiry on March 30, 2018
Teachers and their supporters picketing.
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The Media Still Gets the Working Class Wrong — But Not in the Way You Think.

The U.S. working class is tremendously diverse — and growing in strength.
by Lane Windham via Made By History on September 3, 2017

Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party?

Historian Judith Stein debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.
by Judith Stein, Connor Kilpatrick via Jacobin on September 6, 2016
An oil rig sprays crude oil into the air.
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Voices from the Oilfields

Using oral histories of early East Texas oil workers, recorded in the 1950s, we hear about the chaos and excess that accompanied the discovery of oil.
via BackStory on January 9, 2015

The Bisbee Deportation of 1917

It had not only a pivotal effect in Arizona's own labor history, but also on labor activity throughout the country.
by Sheila Bonnand via University of Arizona Library on January 1, 1997
Photo of Black woman and boy posing with a car packed with their belongings during the Great Migration.

The Hosts of Black Labor

The South must reform its attitude toward the Negro. The North must reform its attitude toward common labor. 
by W.E.B. Du Bois via The Nation on May 9, 1923
A man in a suit with angel wings clipped to his back, tipping a hat with six different arms.

The Cult of the Entrepreneur

Why do Americans idealize people who found businesses?
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The New Republic on February 17, 2025
A crew of inmate firefighters begins to work on containment during the Hughes Fire in California in 2025.
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The Troubling Slavery-Era Origins of Inmate Firefighting

The history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of relying on involuntary labor to fight blazes.
by Justin Hawkins via Made By History on January 31, 2025
A drawing of a man riding a train and laying down train tracks in front of him.

The Insidious Charms of the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic

You’re passionate. Purpose-driven. Dreaming big, working hard, making it happen. And now they’ve got you where they want you.
by Anna Wiener via The New Yorker on January 27, 2025
Federal employees wait for treatment at a public health dispensary.

Trump Isn’t the First to Upend the Federal Workforce Because of Race

President Woodrow Wilson presided over the segregation of government workers, putting Black people behind screens and in cages in 1913.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on January 23, 2025
Workers with shovels constructing the Panama Canal.
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Trump’s Talk of the Panama Canal Taps Into Old Myths About U.S. Power

By threatening to reclaim the Panama Canal, Trump is evoking false stories about U.S. beneficence.
by Julie Greene via Made By History on January 22, 2025
Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Jimmy Carter Was No Friend of Union Workers Like Me

As a worker in the 1970s, I looked forward to a Jimmy Carter administration. By the end of his term in office, I felt betrayed.
by Chris Townsend via Jacobin on December 29, 2024
Karen Silkwood.

Whistleblower Karen Silkwood’s Urgent Message for Us

Karen Silkwood death and smear campaign highlights how retaliation against whistleblowers deflects scrutiny from power by targeting the messenger.
by Sarah Milov, Katherine Turk via Jacobin on December 28, 2024
David Montgomery in a picket line during a 1955 UE strike.

The People in the Shop

A new collection of essays by David Montgomery shows how he used labor history as a means of grappling with the largest questions in American history.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on December 17, 2024
A map dedication from Osgood Carlton "to the select men of the town of Boston" in 1795.

Practical Knowledge and the New Republic

Osgood Carleton and his forgotten 1795 map of Boston.
by John W. Mackey via American Revolutionary Geographies Online on December 17, 2024
Blair LM Kelley

Talking Black Joy and Black Freedom with Blair LM Kelley

“The world didn’t give It, but the world can’t take It away.”
by Regina Bradley, Blair LM Kelley via Public Books on December 16, 2024
Bracero workers in line getting paperwork filled out.

A New Bracero Program Is Not the Solution

An Eisenhower-era initiative holds key lessons for Trump’s immigration policy.
by Mae Ngai via The Atlantic on December 9, 2024
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