Labor and Urban Studies

Labor History

Strike!: How the Furniture Workers Strike of 1911 Changed Grand Rapids

Jeffrey D. Kleiman

A history of the 1911 furniture workers strike that crippled Grand Rapids and changed the city in several important ways.

The Practical Utopians: American Workers and the Cooperative Movement in the Gilded Age

Steven Leikin

An exploration of the ideological conflicts and practical experiences of late-nineteenth-century American workers who pursued “cooperation” as an alternative to “competitive” capitalism.

A Wobbly Life: IWW Organizer E. F. Doree

Ellen Doree Rosen

Through personal letters and narrative, A Wobbly Life details the life, imprisonment, and eventual freedom of one of the last and most important Industrial Workers of the World voices.

American Vanguard: The United Auto Workers during the Reuther Years, 1935–1970

John Barnard

Geared toward general readers and scholars alike, American Vanguard presents the first history of the UAW, one of America’s most significant workers’ organizations, from its origins through its period of greatest impact.