Labor History Today

Big Top Labor: Life and labor in the circus world

There was always something about the circus that bothered me, maybe because by the time I saw it in the 1970s, “The Greatest Show on Earth” was reduced to playing in sports stadiums and arenas, a shadow of the glory days when towns and even cities declared “Circus Day” and closed down so everyone could go gawk at the spectacle of acrobatic performers wild animals and creepy sideshows.But now, thanks to Andrea Ringer, I know that it was the class struggle lurking right there in plain sight, just beneath the Big Top, the spangles and sequins. As Ringer explains in today’s show, the circus was a highly transient workplace, with a long history of exploiting its workers, and in a Zoom talk last month, she examined the life and work of the people who labored in tented shows during the circus Golden Age, from the 1880s until the late 1950s. Andrea Ringer is assistant professor of history at Tennessee State University. Her talk, “'Save the Circus’: Worker Strikes, Circusgoers, and the Mid-Twentieth Century Decline of the Big Top” was part of the "Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives" Brown Bag series sponsored by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program and the Labor Education Program at MSU’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations.  On today’s Labor History in 2:00: Minneapolis Teachers Brave the Cold for a Better Tomorrow.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Hosted and produced by Chris Garlock. 
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Michael Honey on Dr. King: “All Labor Has Dignity”

On today’s show, a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. scholar Dr. Michael Honey. The online talk, “All Labor Has Dignity”, took place last year on April 5, 53 years after Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis and on the precipice of yet another “right to work” vote in New Hampshire. This was at least the 30th attempt to pass a right-to-work bill in New Hampshire in the last 40 years, and Dr. Honey’s talk was organized to remind folks in New Hampshire that not only did Dr. King die while supporting a labor strike, but that he was a strong opponent of Right to Work, which as he pointed out, “provides no rights and no work.”  The talk was organized by the American Friends Service Committee-New Hampshire Program and the New Hampshire United Church of Christ Economic Justice Ministry Team and with the support of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO.On today’s Labor History in 2:00: The First Woman in Congress.
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock. 
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Industrial murder at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

On today’s show, we remember the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. From Union Strong, the podcast from the New York State AFL-CIO, “A Day in History that Changed Workplace Safety”; a look back at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire through an interview with Edgar Romney, the Secretary-Treasurer of Workers United.Then, from Labor History in 2:00, “Industrial Murder at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory”.Next, historian Annelise Orleck discusses the labor-rights activism of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers on Democracy Now.And we wrap up with Ai-Jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, discussing the importance of protecting -- and not marginalizing -- our domestic workers today.Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock. 
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Music: Ballad of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (Bev Grant); The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Song (Mike Stout).Special thanks to Friday's Labor Folklore; subscribe here: fridaysfolklore@gmail.com

Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver

On today’s show, as Women’s History Month continues, historian Jane Little Botkin explains how Jane Street, a single mother, firebrand, and little-known IWW organizer, orchestrated a 1916 housemaids’ rebellion in Denver, Colorado.
To fight for better pay and working conditions in Denver’s elite Capitol Hill neighborhood, Street worked with—and later, despite—the IWW to blacklist and shame the area’s worst domestic employers, thereby disrupting the comfort and reputations of some of Denver’s most influential and powerful families.
The author of The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver and Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family, Botkin has received two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, the Caroline Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library Western History and Genealogy Department, and the Best Historical Nonfiction Award from the Texas Association of Authors.
Her story comes to us from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast, which is a fellow member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.On this week’s Labor History in Two: Police Attack Women Sit-Downers. Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock. 
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Music: The Rebel Girl (Alyeah Hansen)

Union women heroes, past and present

Today’s show comes to us from Labor’s Untold Stories, hosted by Marty Horning. As Women’s History Month continues, Marty honors some of the women, both past and present, who have helped build – and who are now leading – the American labor movement. And there’s plenty of good music, too.On this week’s Labor History in Two: Remembering Susan B. Anthony. Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Produced by Chris Garlock. 
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @CLUWNational #EqualPayWeekOfAction #EqualPayDay2021 #HealthierWithFairPay 
Music: The Rebel Girl (Janne Lærkedahl); Which Side are You On? (The Freedom Singers); Fannie Sellins (Anne Feeney); Emma Goldman (Adam East & Kris Deelane); The Rebel Girl Joe Glazer.       

The Radicalism of Irish American Women

Women's History Month is celebrated in March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with International Women's Day on March 8.On this week’s show, the Ballot Blocked podcast focuses on the role of Irish American women in the suffrage movement. Many of these women were already veteran organizers. They had led strikes and fought for labor unions in cities across the country. They had also campaigned for land reform in Ireland and for Irish independence. Dr. Tara McCarthy, a professor of history at Central Michigan University and the author of Respectability and Reform: Irish American Women’s Activism, 1880-1920, reflects on the activist history of Irish American women, and how this set them apart from many other suffragists.Ballot Blocked is produced and hosted by Dr. Eleanor Mahoney. Dr. Sylvea Hollis conducted research and interviews and helped plan the podcast. Drew Himmelstein is the producer and editor. Music is by Podington Bear. The project was made possible through the National Park Service in part through a grant from the National Park Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Also on today’s show, the Heartland Labor Forum’s Judy Ancel tells us about Sarah Lloyd Green -- suffragette, feminist and fiery labor organizer, whose story, like so many women’s, has been all but forgotten.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: Francis Perkins named Secretary of Labor (1933).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Hosted this week by Mel Smith, produced by Chris Garlock. 
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Additional music clips from: Sufferin' Till Suffrage, Etta James; Women's Suffrage movement, Schoolhouse Rock.

Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine

On July 17, 1944, a group of sailors and civilians were loading ships with ammunition and bombs at Port Chicago, a naval magazine and barracks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tragically, the ships blew up in a massive explosion that instantly killed 320 workers and injured hundreds more. Most of the dead were African Americans, since racial segregation consigned Black soldiers and sailors to manual labor and service, including the dangerous work of transporting munitions. When the surviving workers were ordered back on the job without any additional safety measures or training, 50 refused to return. The resisters, dubbed the “Port Chicago 50,” were found guilty of disobedience of a lawful order and mutiny and received lengthy sentences and dishonorable discharges.Today, the disaster and its aftermath are memorialized at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, one of a small number of National Park sites that commemorate death and dying on the job. Last October, as part of "Monumental Labor," a three-part online series that explored the memory of work and working peoples in National Parks and National Historic Landmarks,  a distinguished panel discussed “Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine.” Dr. Albert Broussard, Professor of History at Texas A&M University, Tom Leatherman, former Superintendent at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, and Dr. Erika Doss, Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, discussed African American labor in the West, the memorial’s role in shaping the memory of the Port Chicago disaster, and how the event should inform commonly-told histories of “America’s Greatest War.”The "Monumental Labor" series was organized by Dr. Eleanor Mahoney and Dr. Emma Silverman. Dr. Mahoney has contributed to Labor History Today before, and we appreciate her help bringing this discussion to the podcast as Black History Month wraps up. Thanks also to the National Park Service, and to the National Park and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, which helped make the series possible. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The 1937 Woolworth Sit-Down (1937), and Criminalization of the Sit-Down (1939).  
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon.
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Black labor in Richmond

For 150 years, Richmond's place in history has been as "the capital of the Confederacy." But this label hides a much richer and more complex history. On today’s show, we hear from Peter Rachleff, Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library, a retired professor of history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of "Black Labor in Richmond, 1865 -1890," as he reveals part of that hidden history, that of Black and White workers in the second half of the 19th century. Note: Excerpted from Rachleff’s Feb. 2, 2022 talk for The Virginia Worker; click here for the complete talk.  
On this week’s Labor History in Two: Yale Grad Students Strike (2/17/1992).
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon.
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