Labor History Today

Ybor City, Crucible of the Latina South

On this week's Labor History Today: Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made Ybor City the global capital of the Cuban cigar industry, and established the foundation of latinidad in the Sunshine State. Located on the eastern edge of Tampa, Ybor City was a neighborhood of cigar workers and Caribbean revolutionaries who sought refuge against the shifting tides of international political turmoil during the early half of the twentieth century.
Producer Patrick Dixon talks with historian Sarah McNamara about her book Ybor City, Crucible of the Latina South, which tells the story of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinas and Latinos who organized strikes, marched against fascism, and criticized U.S. foreign policy. While many members of the immigrant generation maintained their dedication to progressive ideals for years to come, those who came of age in the wake of World War II distanced themselves from leftist politics amidst the Red Scare and the wrecking ball of urban renewal.
This portrait of the political shifts that defined Ybor City highlights the underexplored role of women’s leadership within movements for social and economic justice as it illustrates how people, places, and politics become who and what they are. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The American Federation of Labor is founded.
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Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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A tale of two Detroit murals

Dr. Jay Cephas considers two Depression-era murals in Detroit and their contrasting messaging about workers, labor, and power. Diego Rivera’s famed Detroit Industry murals (top), commissioned by Edsel Ford for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1932, champions industrial and technological progress and the factory workers who fueled it. In contrast, Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson’s 1937 untitled mural (bottom), which originally hung in the UAW Local 174 union hall and now hangs behind the reference desk at the Reuther Library, champions the progress those industrial workers made laboring for their own welfare via union action.
Dr. Cephas is Assistant Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University. His essay “Detroit Industry and ‘The Mural’: Representing Labor and Reappropriating Care in the Museum and in the Union Hall,” was published in the 2023 volume, Architectures of Care: From the Intimate to the Common.Originally aired on the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The World Loses the Miners’ Angel.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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The lost labor artist

Five stunning paintings depicting labor organizing, pickets and the violence directed at workers in the turbulent 1930s were almost lost to history. The story of Philip Tipperman and how a small group of people saved those paintings. On this week’s Labor History in Two: Massacre At Bogalusa.Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Picketed, Beaten, by Philip Tipperman, 1939

The Bootleg Coal Rebellion

Labor historian Mitch Troutman’s 2022 book, The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry, 1925-1942 is a detailed account of coal bootlegging in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania in the Prohibition/Depression decades when unemployed miners took over unused mines, asserting and defending a right to mine and market the coal to support their families. Excerpted from his June 23, 2022 talk for The Battle of Homestead Foundation.  On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1785. That was the day the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York was founded.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Together We Can Move Mountains

Bev Grant is a cultural worker from Brooklyn, NY; she’s a social justice feminist, a choral director, an occasional bandleader, a dance artist and a photographer.  She’s also a much beloved singer/songwriter, and on today’s show, she tells us the story behind one of her best-known songs – and one that seems especially meaningful this post-election week, Together We Can Move Mountains.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The Benevolent Dictator.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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A Wild Woman Sings the Blues

“The life and music of Barbara Dane,” from The Harry Bridges Project. The story of America told through its social upheaval, its achievements and, above all, its music. Originally broadcast on WPFW's Labor Heritage Power Hour (10/31/24). On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1975; that was the day that the National Organization for Women, or NOW, called for a strike by women across the nation.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Remembering the West Virginia Mine Wars

LHT tours the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum with Executive Director Mackenzie New-Walker. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1948. That was the day that a thick yellow fog rolled over the town of Donora, Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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“The Union’s Inspiration”

The Pittsburgh Labor Choir’s Tom Hoffman and Kira Yeversky lead a master class in the history of labor songs in their inspirational session at this year’s Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium, recorded with a live – and enthusiastically singing – audience. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  The year was 1945; that was the day that Paul Robeson received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. 
Questions, comments, or suggestions are 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 the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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