Scott Kamen is Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, Valencia. This interview is based on his new book, From Union Halls to the Suburbs: Americans for Democratic Action and the Transformation of Postwar Liberalism (University of […]
working class
The Author’s Corner with Aimee Loiselle
Aimee Loiselle is Assistant Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. This interview is based on her new book, Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University […]
The working class Christian faith of Shawn Fain in historical context
We have covered Fain’s Christian faith before at this blog. Check out our posts here and here. Today CNN is running a long-form piece by John Blake on the religious beliefs of the leader of the United Auto Workers. Here […]
The United Auto Workers now have deals with all three automakers
This is a significant victory for the working class and unions. Here is Alex N. Press at Jacobin: Forty-four days after occupying the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, in 1936, during the first sit-down strike, the United Auto Workers […]
Episode 119: “How the Social Gospel Undermined Social Democracy”
There was a profound difference between Christian Socialism and the so-called “Social Gospel.” Janine Giordano Drake explains these differences in her new book The Gospel of Church: How Mainline Protestants Vilified Christian Socialism and Fractured the Labor Movement. Drake argues that […]
Shawn Fain’s Christian radicalism
Earlier this week I wondered why people were not talking and writing more about UAW president Shawn Fain’s Christian faith. Church historian Heath Carter has published the piece I was hoping for. Here is a taste of his Jacobin article […]
Donald Trump goes to Michigan and speaks at a non-union factory
Donald Trump skipped Wednesday night’s GOP debate. Instead he went to Clinton Township, Michigan and spoke at a non-union auto parts factory. The day before Trump’s visit to Michigan, sitting president Joe Biden joined United Autoworkers leader Shawn Fain at […]
The Christian faith of UAW’s Shawn Fain
He carries a Bible and regularly invokes his faith as he leads the United Auto Workers in a historic strike against the country’s three largest automakers. For Fain, the strike is a “righteous cause.” This reminds of Eugene Debs’s claim […]
Joe Biden joins the United Auto Workers picket line in support of striking workers
For the first time in United States history a sitting president joined a picket line. Here is Joe Biden at a General Motors warehouse in Van Buren Township, Michigan: More here. Interesting take from a Cambridge University historian: Socialist Jacobin […]
Is “girl boss feminism” on the decline?
Here is Liza Featherstone at Jacobin: This elitist vision of feminism has been around for more than one hundred years. In the early twentieth century Alexandra Kollontai, a Russian socialist organizer and writer who would later become the only woman in […]
Tim Scott to autoworkers: “You strike, you’re fired”
Tim Scott is trying to invoke the ghost of Ronald Reagan. But the United Auto Workers are having none of it. Here is Daniel Boguslaw at Intercept: AFTER INVOKING THE legacy of Ronald Reagan to suggest that striking United Auto Workers members should […]
The Author’s Corner with Michael McCulloch
Michael McCulloch is Associate Professor of Architecture and Master of Architecture Program Chair at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University. This interview is based on his new book, Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early-Twentieth Century […]
75% of Americans side with the United Auto Workers. Why aren’t more Americans in the streets as a show of support?
When the George Floyd was killed, Americans took the streets in protest. When Donald Trump was elected president, the #MeToo movement took the streets in protest. Why don’t we see similar uprisings in support of working class Americans fighting for […]
Billy Sunday on the working man, 1917
Los Angeles Evening Express, September 3, 1917.
Frank Thompson died a hero. His brother, historian E.P. Thompson, “spent his life wondering why.”
This is a fascinating story about the life of one of the 20th century’s great economic and social historians and the memory of his brother. Here is Madoc Cairns at The New Statesman: When they told Frank Thompson they would […]
The Author’s Corner with Mark Erlich
Mark Erlich is the Wertheim Fellow at The Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and the retired Executive Secretary Treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. This interview is based on his new […]
Ron DeSantis: Tampa suburbanite and Ivy Leaguer
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Yale and Harvard graduate, likes to tout his place-based working class roots. Writer Paul Waldman is having none of it. Here is a taste of Waldman’s piece at The Washington Post: Presidential candidates do lots of […]
Abraham Lincoln: Working class hero?
Everyone wants to claim Lincoln. Even socialists. Here is University of Arkansas history professor Matthew Stanley at Jacobin: Would Lincoln’s sincere hatred of the Slave Power have translated after the war to a critique of the Money Power and other […]
The Author’s Corner with Thomas A. Castillo
Thomas A. Castillo is Associate Professor of History at Coastal Carolina University. This interview is based on his book, Working in the Magic City: Moral Economy in Early Twentieth-Century Miami (University of Illinois Press, 2022). JF: What led you to […]
The Author’s Corner with Victoria E. Ott
Victoria E. Ott is James A. Wood Professor of American History and the coordinator of Gender and Women’s Studies at Birmingham-Southern College. This interview is based on her new book, The Failure of Our Fathers: Family, Gender, and Power in […]