Steven Kreis, PhD
The History Guide: Lech Walesa
A brief biography of Lech Walesa and the independent labor movement in Poland. Describes how labor used strikes to improve their working conditions and qualities of life. Their struggles have been an inspiration to labor movements all...
Other
Labor Arts: Solidarity Forever: A Look at Wobbly Culture
An excellent collection of artifacts that highlight the aims and aspirations of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Members of the IWW, known as Wobblies, played a unique role in the American labor movement. Artifacts include...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: America in the 1920s: Prosperity: Labor Union
The National Humanities Center presents collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards historical documents, literary texts, and works of art thematically organized with notes and discussion questions....
University of Houston
University of Houston: An American Industrial Revolution Unit: Rise of Labor
Students learn about the history of the labor movement in Industrial America, including some of the major unions that emerged and the most well-known strikes. Next, they make connections to the role of unions today. They then work in...
Digital History
Digital History: Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor
A good look at not only Samuel Gompers and the formation of the American Federation of Labor, but also of the course of unionism in general, its successes and failures, its goals, and membership in the late 19th century.
Hartford Web Publishing
World History Archives: Uwa: Nationlist Movements and Labor in Southern Africa
An article on the relationship between labor and nationalist/liberation movements.
Department of Defense
Do Dea: Ap Us History: Unit 10: Understanding American History
This extensive learning module looks at how themes of American history can create a better understanding of the big picture of the nation's history.
Chicago History Museum
Chicago Historical Society: The Dramas of Haymarket
The Chicago Historical Society presents extensive information about the 1886 bombing at Haymarket Square that helped change the course of the labor movement. Read about the bombing, arrests, trial, executions, and other events that...
University of Washington
University of Washington: Strikes and Unions
The Great Depression built the modern labor movement by growing and strengthening unions. Follow the labor movement through a day-by-day database of newspaper articles chronicling strikes in Washington State. Additionally, students can...
Other
Key People in Labor History: Asa Philip Randolph (1889 1979)
Biographical essay on A. Philip Randolph, one of the organizers of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He was also very active in civil rights and the movement to end discrimination in the military and defense industries.
University of Maryland
University of Maryland: The Samuel Gompers Papers
Site from the University of Maryland provides primary source documents, a brief history of the labor movement, and biographical information about Samuel Gompers. A great resource for teachers and students.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Stirrings of Reform
The democratic upheaval in politics exemplified by Jackson's election was merely one phase of the long American quest for greater rights and opportunities for all citizens. Another was the beginning of labor organization, primarily among...
Britain Express
Britain Express: History: The Victorian Age: Chartism
A history of the Chartist Movement in England from its origins in 1838 with the "People's Charter," to its demise in 1848.
Other
U.s. History Timeline: 1865 1900
A thumbnail look at the many things occurring in the United States in the last half half of the 19th century. The topics covered are Gilded Age Politics, the "New Imperialism," Industrial America, Growth of Labor, Urbanization,...
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: The Iron Horse: The Workingmen's Party
From a lengthy essay on the history of the railroad in the United States. This section describes the emergence of the Workingmen's Party as a political force in St. Louis, its role in the railroad strikes of 1877, and how it may have...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Ap Us History: 1890 1945: The Age of Empire: Muckrakers
Discusses the muckraking journalists and novelists who were at the forefront of movements pushing for stronger protections for workers and consumers. Their work led to the passage of several important pieces of legislation. Includes...
Library of Congress
Loc: Learning Page: Labor in America
A rich collection of resources, including primary sources, student activities, and lesson plans, to support study of Americans at work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
New York University
Nyu: Labor & the Holocaust: The Jewish Labor Committee
Resource traces the Jewish Labor Committee from its inception in American labor history, through its anti-Nazi work during WW II.
University of Maryland
Howard County History Labs: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire [Pdf]
In order to use this source to assess students' historical thinking skills, students should understand the history of industrialization and the working conditions typical of late nineteenth-century factories. Students will analyze...
Digital History
Digital History: Feminism Reborn
This comprehensive survey of the women's movement during the 1960s and 1970s documents women and politics, women's wages, legal discrimination against women, stereotypes of women, women's rights legislation, and women's rights...
Hartford Web Publishing
World History Archives: Indispensable Ally: Black Workers, Formation of the Cio
This article relates the history of African Americans in the union movement during the Great Depression. Read about the importance of black membership in the CIO, the ILA, and the steel industry.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Biography of America: Capital and Labor
This thirty-minute video, the seventeenth in a series on American history, examines the rocky relationship between labor, management, and industry from 1882 to 1901. You can also read the transcript, find a map of the Anthracite Strike,...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: The Progressives
Comprehensive teaching unit that explores the Progressive period in America and the reform movements that accompanied it. Contains video and text materials, web interactives, student oriented activities, and a timeline of key events from...
University of North Carolina
Unc: History of the Negro Church: Electronic Edition
This website is quite unique, in that it compiles historical data in a segmented form of the birth and evolution of Black Christianity in America. Carter G. Woodson, one of the most respected names relative to the anthology of the Negro,...