| |
| |
| Preface | |
| |
| |
| Introduction | |
| |
| |
| |
| Early American Labor: Hard, Bound, and Free 1600s-1810s | |
| |
| |
| "The Trappan'd Maiden: or, the Distressed Damsel" (mid-1600s) | |
| |
| |
| "The Poor, Unhappy Transported Felon" (1680s) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754" (1754) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Petition of a Grate Number of Blackes" to Thomas Gage, May 25, 1774 | |
| |
| |
| ["I Was in Another World: The Slave Ship"] from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for North America, Etc." (1773) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "A Sea Song" | |
| |
| |
| "The Raising: A New Song for Federal Mechanics" by A. B. (1788) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Address to the Journeymen Cordwainers L. B. of Philadelphia" (1794) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811-12) | |
| |
| |
| |
| New Kinds of Work, Old Practices 1820s-1850s | |
| |
| |
| Sorrow Songs and Spirituals | |
| |
| |
| "Nobody knows de trouble I've seen" | |
| |
| |
| "Steal away to Jesus" | |
| |
| |
| "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" | |
| |
| |
| "Many Thousand Gone" | |
| |
| |
| "Bredden, don't git weary" | |
| |
| |
| "The Sorrow Songs" (1903) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Lecture Delivered at the Franklin Hall, Boston, September 21, 1832" | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Lowell Mill Girls | |
| |
| |
| "A Second Peep at Factory Life" (1845) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Letters to Her Father" (1845-1848) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Lowell Factory Girl" | |
| |
| |
| "Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls" (1898) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "From The Same Cloth: For the Mill Girls, Lowell, Massachusetts, circa 1840" (1985) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["In the Shipyards"] (1845 and 1855) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "An Address to the Colored People of the United States" from The North Star (1848) | |
| |
| |
| "The Paradise of Bachelors" and "The Tartarus of Maids" (1855) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Ship-Builders" (1850) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Soliloquy of a Housemaid" (1854) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Working-Girls of New York" (1868) | |
| |
| |
| "The Slave Mother" (1857) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Keep her...She's real handsome and bright, and not very black, either." | |
| |
| |
| |
| "A Song for Occupations" (1855) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Wound-Dresser" (1865) | |
| |
| |
| Nineteenth-Century Work Songs | |
| |
| |
| "Peg An' Awl" | |
| |
| |
| "Paddy Works on the Railway" | |
| |
| |
| "The Housekeeper's Lament" | |
| |
| |
| "The Farmer Is the Man" | |
| |
| |
| "John Henry" | |
| |
| |
| |
| Beneath the Gilded Surface: Wording-Class Fictions and Realities, 1860-1890s | |
| |
| |
| "Life in the Iron Mills" (1861) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Eight Hours" (1866, poem; set to music, 1878) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "To Tramps" (1884) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Songs of the Knights of Labor | |
| |
| |
| "Knights of Labor" (1898) | |
| |
| |
| "Storm the Fort, Ye Knights" (1885) | |
| |
| |
| "Thirty Cents a Day" (1892) | |
| |
| |
| "America" (1890) | |
| |
| |
| "Father Gander's Melodies" (1887) | |
| |
| |
| "One More Battle to Fight" (1892) | |
| |
| |
| The Battle of Homestead, 1892 | |
| |
| |
| AAISW Preamble (from the Constitution of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers) | |
| |
| |
| "Tyrant Frick" | |
| |
| |
| "A Man Named Carnegie" | |
| |
| |
| "Father Was Killed by the Pinkerton Men" | |
| |
| |
| "A Fight for Home and Honor" | |
| |
| |
| "The Men in the Storm" (1894) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Under the Lion's Paw" (1889) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Man with the Hoe" (1899) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Lifelets: Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans" from the Independent | |
| |
| |
| "A Georgia Negro Peon" (1904) | |
| |
| |
| "The Autobiography A Labor Leader": James Williams (1902) | |
| |
| |
| "A Negro Nurse" (1912) | |
| |
| |
| "The Grandfather of the Sierra Nevada Mountains" from China Men (1980) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Angel Island Poems by Chinese Immigrants (1910-1940) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Revolt, Represssion, and Cultural Formations: 1900-1929 | |
| |
| |
| "How I Became a Socialist" (1902) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Statement to the Court" (1918) | |
| |
| |
| Miners' and Other Labor Poems | |
| |
| |
| "The Man Behind the Pick" (1903) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Scab, Scab, Scab" (1904) | |
| |
| |
| "The Eight Hour Day" (1904) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "A Colorado Miner's Fourth" (1905) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Union Poem" (1909) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Labor Speaks" (1909) | |
| |
| |
| "Wadda Ya Want to Break Your Back for the Boss For" (c. 1917) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Worker," (1917) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Political Prisoners" (1921) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "St. Peter and the Scab" (1923) | |
| |
| |
| ["The Hog-Squeal of the Universe"] from The Jungle (1906) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Apostate" (1906) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Pinched": A Prison Experience (1907) | |
| |
| |
| "A Cap Maker's Story" (1905) | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, March 25, 1911 | |
| |
| |
| "Requiem on the Triangle Fire" (1911) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Contemporary Poems on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire | |
| |
| |
| "The Triangle Fire" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Four from Sonya," "I Am Appalled," "Survivor's Cento," "Sear" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Sisters in the Flames" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Rituals of spring (for the 78th anniversary of the shirtwaist factory fire)" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Bread and Roses" (1914) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Walker" (1914) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "War in Paterson" (1913) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Fellow Workers: IWW Oral Histories | |
| |
| |
| (from Solidarity Forever, An Oral History of the IWW 1985) | |
| |
| |
| "Paterson had a prison-like feeling" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Working the Docks" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The March of the Mill Children" (1903) | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Wobblies, the "Little Red Song Book," and the Legacy of Joe Hill (1879-1915) | |
| |
| |
| "Joe Hill-Martyred Troubador of Labor" from The Rebel Girl: My First Life (1906-1926) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Rebel Girl" (song) and letter to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn | |
| |
| |
| |
| From The Little Red Song Book (1913) | |
| |
| |
| "Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World" | |
| |
| |
| "The Tramp" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Solidarity Forever!" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Preacher and the Slave" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Popular Wobbly" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Joe Hill's Last Will" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mourn Not the Dead" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Joe Hill" (1928) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "A Dream of Joe Hill" (2000) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Through the Needle's Eye: 1. Comrade Jesus | |
| |
| |
| |
| 2. Quatrain" (1915) | |
| |
| |
| "Chicago" (1916) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Muckers" (1916) | |
| |
| |
| "Child of the Romans" (1916) | |
| |
| |
| from "The People, Yes" (1936) | |
| |
| |
| "The Ghetto" (1918) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Free Vacation House" (1920) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Billy's Birth," restored chapter of Weeds (1923) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance | |
| |
| |
| "O Black and Unknown Bards" (1908) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Reapers" (1923) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Harlem Dancer" (1917) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "If We Must Die" (1919) | |
| |
| |
| "The Lynching" (1920) | |
| |
| |
| "For a Lady I Know" (1925) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "From the Dark Tower" (1927) | |
| |
| |
| "Ma Rainey" (1930) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Scotty Has His Say" (1932) | |
| |
| |
| "Call Boy" (1932) | |
| |
| |
| "I Sit and Sew" (1920) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Fragment" (c. 1930) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Report to the Stockholders" (1925) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Beaufort Tides" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| "Last Speech to the Court" (1927) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["The Wanderlust in My Blood"] from Daughter of Earth (1929) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mining Families" 1937 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Economic Depression and Cultural Resurgence: 1930s | |
| |
| |
| "The Weary Blues" (1925) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Johannesburg Mines" (1928) | |
| |
| |
| "Christ in Alabama" (1931) | |
| |
| |
| "Park Bench" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| "Let America Be America Again" (1936) | |
| |
| |
| "Office Building Evening" (pub. 1960) | |
| |
| |
| "Words Property of the People" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Life of the Mind, 1935" (1935) | |
| |
| |
| "At Last the Women Are Moving" (1935) | |
| |
| |
| "The Emergency Brigade at Flint" (1937) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Go Left, Young Writers!" (1929) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Jews and Christians" from Jews Without Money (1935) | |
| |
| |
| Appalachia Voices | |
| |
| |
| "Kentucky Miners' Wives Ragged Hungry Blues" (1932) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "I Am a Girl of Constant Sorrow" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "They Say Them Child Brides Don't Last: Florence Reece" from Hillbilly Women (1972) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Which Side Are You On?" (1931) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Murder of Harry Simms" | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Commentary on Harry Simms" (1932) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Harlan: Working Under the Gun" (1931) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Among Elms and Maples, Morgantown, West Virginia, August, 1935" (1986) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mining Camp Residents, West Virginia, July, 1935" (1986) | |
| |
| |
| "Long Story" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "Clods of Southern Earth: Introduction" (1946) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mountain Boy" (1931-1932?) | |
| |
| |
| "Clodhopper" (1940) | |
| |
| |
| "There's Anger in the Land" (1950) | |
| |
| |
| "No Lonesome Road" (1940) | |
| |
| |
| "I Am a Woman Worker": A Scrapbook of Autobiographies from the Summer Schools for Women Workers (1936) | |
| |
| |
| "Soldering" | |
| |
| |
| "One Day of Labor" | |
| |
| |
| "Bean Picking" | |
| |
| |
| "The Piece-Work System" | |
| |
| |
| "The President Visits the Mill" | |
| |
| |
| ["'Are You Bill's Broad?'"] from Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (1937) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "I Have Seen Black Hands" (1935) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Fire and Cloud" (1938) | |
| |
| |
| "I Want You Women Up North to Know" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "I Was Marching" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Eroded Woman" (1948) | |
| |
| |
| from The Book of the Dead (1938) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Road" | |
| |
| |
| "Gauley Bridge" | |
| |
| |
| "Praise of the Committee" | |
| |
| |
| "Absalom" | |
| |
| |
| "The Disease" | |
| |
| |
| "George Robinson: Blues" | |
| |
| |
| "The Book of the Dead" | |
| |
| |
| "Night Shift" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Proletarian Night" (1934) | |
| |
| |
| "Papermill" (1931) | |
| |
| |
| "Worker Uprooted" (1932) | |
| |
| |
| "Now that Snow Is Falling" (1930) | |
| |
| |
| "Joe Hill Listens to the Praying" (1936) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Orange Bears" (1949) | |
| |
| |
| "Monkey Nest Camp" from the Disinherited (1933) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Geremio" from Christ in Concrete (1939) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["Three Hots and a Flop"] from Waiting for Nothing (1935) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["Polk County Blues"] from Mules and Men (1935) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Starvation Under the Orange Trees" (1938) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["The spring is beautiful in California"] from The Grapes of Wrath (1939) | |
| |
| |
| ["Dust"] from Whose Names Are Unknown (2004) | |
| |
| |
| |
| from A Primer for Buford (1990) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "A Primer for Buford" | |
| |
| |
| "Origins" | |
| |
| |
| "Farm Children in the Grip of 1933" | |
| |
| |
| "Via Dolorosa" | |
| |
| |
| "You Can't Go Back" | |
| |
| |
| "Okie Boy Boss at Puccinello's, 1936" | |
| |
| |
| "Abdication Day" | |
| |
| |
| "Picking Grapes, 1937" | |
| |
| |
| "American Folk Music, 1937" | |
| |
| |
| "Roster" | |
| |
| |
| "Day of Return, August 4, 1986" | |
| |
| |
| "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1939) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "1913 Massacre" (1945) | |
| |
| |
| "Two Good Men" (1946) | |
| |
| |
| "Christ for President" (circa 1938) | |
| |
| |
| ["Listening to the Little Girls' Song Drift Out Across the Dark Wind"] from Bound for Glory (1943) | |
| |
| |
| Waiting for Lefty (1935) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Zinc Works Craneman to Wed" (1936) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["The Moss Brothers Enter the Mill"] from Blood on the Forge (1941) | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Affluence, Cold War, and the Other America: 1940s-1970s | |
| |
| |
| "Like a Winding Sheet" (1946) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "If You Want to Know What We Are" (1940) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Story of a Letter" (1946) | |
| |
| |
| ["I'm Gertie Nevels from Ballew, Kentucky"] from The Dollmaker (1954) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Like One of the Family" (1956) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Sometimes I Feel So Sorry" (1956) | |
| |
| |
| "Seventeen Syllables" (1949) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (c. 1952) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Little Ballad for Americans, 1954" | |
| |
| |
| "A Long Way Outside Yellowstone" (1940) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Ars Poetica: or Who Lives in the Ivory Tower?" (1949) | |
| |
| |
| "A Little Song About Charity" (1949) | |
| |
| |
| "On the Memory of a Working-Class Girl" (1940s) | |
| |
| |
| "O'Leary's Last Wish: In Case the Revolution Should Fail" (1940s) | |
| |
| |
| "I Stand Here Ironing" (1956) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat" (1960) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed" (1960) | |
| |
| |
| "The Blackstone Rangers" (1968) | |
| |
| |
| "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" (1963) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Honey" (1982) | |
| |
| |
| "The Common Woman" (1969) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Honored Dead" (posthumous, 1983) | |
| |
| |
| |
| from Working (1972) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Dolores Dante, waitress" | |
| |
| |
| "Mike Lefevre, steelworker" | |
| |
| |
| "The Lesson" (1972) | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| The New World Order and Its Consequences: 1980s to 2005 | |
| |
| |
| "You Can Have it" (1979) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Among Children" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "What Work Is" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "Unemployment" (1983) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Death of Long Steam Lady" (1986) | |
| |
| |
| from...y no se lo trago la tierra / And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1987) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "It's That It Hurts" | |
| |
| |
| "And the Earth Did Not Devour Him" | |
| |
| |
| "The Portrait" | |
| |
| |
| "When We Arrive" | |
| |
| |
| "Counting Tips" (1995) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Whitman's Hands" (1991) | |
| |
| |
| "Mother Witherup's Top Secret Cherry Pie" (1989) | |
| |
| |
| |
| excerpt from Generations: A Memoir (1976) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "At the cemetery, Walnut grove plantation, South Carolina, 1989" (1991) | |
| |
| |
| "To Be of Use" (1973) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Her Gifts" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "The Cultural Worker" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Hard Times in the Valley" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "Blue Collar Goodbyes" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "My Father's Song" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Final Solution: Jobs, Leaving" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "We Have Been Told Many Things" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| from Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "We Call Them Greasers" | |
| |
| |
| "To Live in the Borderlands Means You" | |
| |
| |
| "the cleaning woman/labor relations #4" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Company of Widows" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Crazy Hattie Enters the Ice Age" (1980) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking" (1984) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Making Do" (1986) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The New Apartment, Minneapolis" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| "Blessing" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| "Faces in the Hands" (2000) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Work" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Whistle" (1992) | |
| |
| |
| "The Company Pool" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Positivity Poster" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Positivity Poster #75" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Urgent Need for Blood" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Positivity Poster #76" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Lullaby" (1981) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mama" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| |
| ["It was time to find a factory job"] from Stone Butch Blues (1990) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Homage" (1984) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Hanging in Solo" (1984) | |
| |
| |
| "First Day on a New Jobsite" (1984) | |
| |
| |
| "Wiretalk" (1984) | |
| |
| |
| "Romero's Shirt" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window" (1983) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Perhaps the World Ends Here" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| "The Story of My Village" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Mileage" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Release of the Spirit" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "Blue Collar" (1999) | |
| |
| |
| "The Black Back-Ups" (1993) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Heroes and Saints" (1983) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The New Warden" (1979) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans" (1982) | |
| |
| |
| "Perfecto Flores" (1986) | |
| |
| |
| "Awake in a Strange Landscape" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Louise" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "The Rolling Rock Man" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| "A Waitress's Instructions on Tipping" (1994) | |
| |
| |
| "The Waitress Angels Speak to Me in a Vision (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "The Cariboo Cafe" (1988) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "My Father" (1977) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Story of Glass" (1977) | |
| |
| |
| "After the Deindustrialization of America" (1990) | |
| |
| |
| "Toward the Heaven of Full Employment" (1990) | |
| |
| |
| "Now" (1990) | |
| |
| |
| "Digger Thinks About Numbers" (1985) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "Digger Goes on Vacation" (1985) | |
| |
| |
| "Digger Laid Off" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "Digger, the Birthday Boy" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "Digger's Territory" (1989) | |
| |
| |
| "Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper" (1993) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "The Toolmaker Unemployed" (1993) | |
| |
| |
| "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" (2002) | |
| |
| |
| "Lovey's Homemade Singer Sewing Class Patchwork Denim Hiphuggers" (1996) | |
| |
| |
| |
| "El Olor de Cansansio (The Smell of Fatigue)" (2000) | |
| |
| |
| |
| Contents | |
| |
| |
| Select Bibliography | |
| |
| |
| A Timeline of American Working-Class History | |
| |
| |
| Credits | |
| |
| |
| Index | |
| |
| |
| Index | |
| |
| |
| About the Editors | |