This is the support page for Solidarity Forever: The History of American Labor by Roscoe (R. Jean) Mathieu (he/him/stranger).
The history and how-to of American labor, from 1619 to tomorrow’s headlines. Starting with the Jamestown strike (as the White Lion landed), this podcast will cover American labor history in its advances, setbacks, triumphs, and shames, interspersed with labor theory and practice for making labor history of your own.
Solidarity forever, friends!
Special thanks to David Rovics for his recording of “Solidarity Forever.”
- Where to Find "Solidarity Forever"
- Episode 1: The History of the History of American Labor
- Episode 2: Eight Dutch-men and Poles
- Episode 3: The Exceptional Americans
- Episode 4: Throwing a Working Man's Party
- Episode 5: Regularly Discharged Forever
- Episode 6: New Jersey Feelings
- Episode 7: Lowell II: Revenge of the Mill-Girls
Where to Find “Solidarity Forever”
Episode 1: The History of the History of American Labor
Who I am, what labor unions are, and why you should care.
Episode 2: Eight Dutch-men and Poles
The first American labor strike not even a decade after the beginning of American industry…and only a few months shy of the beginning of American slavery.
- General History of Virginia – Captain John Smith
- US History dot Org– Jamestown Settlement and the “Starving Time”
- Instructions to George Yeatley – the Virginia Company of London
- The records of the Virginia Company of London – July 21, 1619
- Fact vs Fiction: What do we really know about the Polish presence at Jamestown? – James S. Pula
- Labor in America – Melvyn Dubovsky and Joseph A. McCartin
Episode 3: The Exceptional Americans
What made American labor so unique, and American labor history so bloody? Today, we find out what makes the Americans exceptional.
- Labor in America – Melvyn Dubovsky and Joseph A. McCartin
- There is Power in a Union – Philip Dray
- Bill of Wages and Price Legislation – Massachussetts General Court
- Your 8th Grade Social Studies Textbook
- Conditions of Labor in Colonial America
- Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 164–65 – Thomas Jefferson
- History of the Labor Movement in the United States – Philip S. Foner
- A History of the People of the United States, vol. 1 – John Bach McMaster
Episode 4: Throwing a Working Man’s Party
GRIID.org – May 1, Creation of the First Union with a Closed-Shop Agreement in the United States
PHILADELPHIA CORDWAINERS’ CASE – University of Massachussetts
Labor in America – Dubovsky and McCartin
Episode 5: Regularly Discharged Forever
There is Power in a Union, Philip Dray.
The Origin of Lowell, Nathan Appleton.
“Among the Mill Girls: A Reminiscence” Larcom.
Hamilton: An American Musical.
Women at Work, Thomas Dublin
Extremely rare 1834 broadside by striking female mill workers in Lowell, Massachusetts. Boston Rare Maps.
Labor Reform: Early Strikes. Lowell National Historical Park.
Use of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls. “Liberty Rhetoric” and the Nineteenth Century American Woman (Wayback Machine).
“Women, Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills.” Thomas Dublin.
“Mill Town on the Merrimack,” Louis Taylor Merrill.
Episode 6: New Jersey Feelings
The Mills of Manayunk, Cynthia Young.
“The Working People of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the General Strike of 1835.” Leonard Bernstein.
Labor in America: A History (9th ed.), Melvyn Dubofsky and Joseph A. McCartin
Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of Philadelphia on the Reduction of the Hours of Labor, and Increase of Wages.
Manayunk, Sarah Jane Elk.
1835 Philadelphia General Strike, Wikipedia.
Episode 7: Lowell II: Revenge of the Mill-Girls
Labor Reform: Early Strikes. Lowell National Historical Park.
Historical Prices and Wages, 1830-1839. Library of University of Missouri.
Loom and Spindle, Harriet Hansen Robinson.
A History of America in Ten Strikes, Erik Loomis.
Labor in America, Melvyn Dubovsky and Joseph A. McCartin.
History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Philip S. Foner.
There is Power in a Union, Philip Dray.
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