Organized labor and working class culture

[dan...@oakland.edu]

 I would like to submit a panel proposal to share some of my research on workers’ education and working-class print culture in the US, and I am looking for co-panelists.

 

My research covers the following topics:

• the UAW’s workers’ education program in the 1930s and 1940s – its purposes, the role of print, and the ways the union created, distributed, and encouraged use of selected literature – through libraries, a bookstore, book club, book reviews, and more.
• UAW locals’ libraries – not only the UAW leaders' goals and strategies when encouraging the creation of local libraries but also how the program played out at the local level and how  the rank-and-file responded (or not).
• Organized labor and print culture during the “cultural front”

I would like to build a panel that offers an interdisciplinary analysis of different aspects of organized labor and working class culture, including – but not limited to – sports and recreational activities, the radio and other media, cartoons and visuals, and union halls as community spaces. Workers' education topics are also relevant and all periods and geographic areas are welcome. Preferably, proposals should explore the connections between organized labor and working class culture, and especially organized labor’s efforts to create and sustain labor consciousness among their members.

For more information: Dominique Daniel, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Archives and Special Collections, Oakland University, Michigan (dan...@oakland.edu)

[James WJ Robinson]

Hello Dr. Daniel,

My name is James Robinson, a 4th Year PhD Candidate in the History Department at Northeastern University. I am working on my dissertation on the use of sports organizing by the labor-left in the 1920s-40s, of which the UAW is a major component! I just finished looking through Walter Reuther Library's collections, which encompassed nearly 15 years of Auto Worker newspapers, with special attention to the recreational sports programs. 

I'd like to join your panel with a focus on UAW Sports Recreational Programs, making the argument that the two largest locals, the West Side GM Local 174 with its Socialist Party leadership, and the Dearborn Ford Local 600, with its Communist leadership, saw unionism as encompassing all aspects of life and sought to build a larger working class antiracist antifascist counterculture with mass activities like sports at the forefront. 

James Robinson

PhD Candidate, Department of History
Northeastern University, Boston

[jwalte...@gmail.com]

Hi Dr. Daniel,

My name is John Lepley and I am an educator for the United Steelworkers.  Your panel idea is very much in line with my interests.  I would like to join your panel with particular attention to contemporary workers' education.  For example, I am currently developing workshops on fascism and right-wing populism, as well as anti-fascist responses, past and present.  My paper would describe the purpose of these workshops, the historical framework that they present, and the pedagogical techniques used to accomplish my teaching objectives. 

John Lepley

jwalte...@gmail.com

[christoph...@uni.edu]

Professor Daniel,

Your panel proposal sounds very interesting, and I would like to contribute with research on post-WWII mainstream newspapers and how their shift in business focus affected their conceptualization and coverage of U.S. working class culture.

My research describes how a purposeful shift toward upscale audiences in the late 1960s/early 1970s led to a change in narratives about labor unions and workers in newspapers. Instead of being “with” the workers, the newspaper narratives began to go “against” the workers because they inflicted inflationary damage and inconveniences on the newspapers’ new upscale consumers. Moreover, mainstream media newspapers shifted their focus to reporting on upscale strivers with the new office “workplace” lifestyles column, and with a new emphasis on personal finance reporting, for America’s budding individualist entrepreneurs. With the working class bereft of (mainstream) journalism that spoke to their lives, the emerging conservative media filled a gap, but only for the white working class whose grievances they stoked. 

Christopher Martin, Ph.D.
Professor of Digital Journalism

Department of Communication Studies
University of Northern Iowa
mar...@uni.edu

[lisa.mi...@gmail.com]

Hello Dr. Daniel,

I'm Lisa Milner, an Australian labor historian at Southern Cross University. I'd be keen to discuss joining your panel on organised labor and working class culture; I have a paper on theatre’s relationships with unions and organised labour in the first half of the 20th century: how these relationships were built, the forms they took, and why union support for theatre declined. Whilst the government, universities and philanthropic foundations took an interest in workers’ education, the work of individual unions in supporting theatre within their ranks provides some stirring case studies, with union organisers using theatre as a tool of organisation, education, propaganda, and entertainment.

Please email me if you are interested in discussing the panel with me.
Regards,

Lisa Milner

lisa....@scu.edu.au