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