Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Organized Labor
Industrial workers, as industry emerged and grew in the last half of the 19th century, did not profit as the business tycoons did. Read about the very beginnings of attempts to organize as a force to demand higher wages, a shorter work...
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.
Chicago History Museum
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Knights of Labor
Encyclopedia of Chicago has an interesting article about the rise of the Knights of Labor. Read about union's acceptance of all workers, its successes, and its legacy.
Chicago History Museum
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Women's Trade Union League
Read about the Chicago branch of the Women's Trade Union League and its alliance between women workers and upper-class women who supported their cause.
Ohio History Central
Ohio History Central: American Federation of Labor
A history of the American Federation of Labor and its organization in 1881 by Samuel Gompers. Read about its growth and eventual combining with the Congress of Industrial Organization to become the AFL-CIO.
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.
Ohio History Central
Ohio History Central: Knights of Labor
Ohio History Central gives a brief summary of the actions and goals of the Knights of Labor in the last half of the 19th century. Find out about their push for improved working conditions and whether striking was advantageous or not in...
Other
United Mine Workers of America: Umwa History: The Ludlow Massacre
A brief history of the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado in 1914. Read about the thwarted attempts of coal miners to unionize.
Other
Usa: Chapter 9: Labor in America: The Worker's Role
Chapter 9 provides an overview of the profound changes labor has undergone from agrarian times to a modern industrial state in the 20th Century and outlines the significance and history of organized labor.
University of Washington
University of Washington: Knights of Labor History and Geography 1869 1899
Overview of the Knights of Labor with maps showing the expansion of the Knights by color-coded time period, the number of local assemblies in each LA county, and more.
Ohio History Central
Ohio History Central: United Mine Workers of America
A look at the history of the United Mine Workers from its inception to present day. Find out what causes the UMW supported.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Comission
Explore Pa History: Founding Convention of the Cio Historical Marker
Read about the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a union that represented steel workers, among many other factoy workers. Find out about their tactics used in strikes during the Great Depression.
Curated OER
History Matters: I Will Kill Frick
Find information about the Homestead strike and the treatment of the workers inspired some labor activists to plot the murder of Henry Clay Frick. Part of the autobiography of Emma Goldman.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Comission
Expore Pa History: Making Steel
A good look at three of the titans of the steel industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Read about Andrew Carnegie and his business relationship with Henry Clay Frick, and the development of Bethlehen Steel by Charles Schwab....
Ohio History Central
Ohio History Central: Little Steel Strike of 1937
An interesting article about the strike against the Little Steel companies in Ohio in 1937. It describes the use of the sit-down strike by the unionized steel workers.
Other
Illinois Labor History Society: When Women Were Knights
This article discusses women's roles in the Knights of Labor.
Other
United Farm Workers: The Rise of the Ufw
History of the United Farm Workers union, with information about 1960 conditions and the efforts to improve them.
Curated OER
History Matters: Leon Sverdlove on the Taft Hartley Act
It's interesting to read about the anti-union sentiment that led to the Taft-Hartley Act after World War II, but even more amazing to see how that sentiment was tied to the anti-communist witch hunts of the time. Read the comments of the...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Ap Us History: 1890 1945: The Age of Empire: The Progressive Era
The Progressive Era from the 1890s to the 1920s evolved as a response to the negative effects of industrialization. Reforms that emerged provided protections for workers and consumers and gave women voting rights. Backlash against the...
Ohio History Central
Ohio History Central: Samuel Gompers
A brief biography of Samuel Gompers focusing primarily on his activities in labor union history.
Curated OER
History Matters: Camella Teoli Testifies About the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike
Read the gripping testimony of an immigrant girl who testified before a U.S. Congressional committee detailing the conditons in the textile mill in which she worked. Because of these unsafe working conditions, the textile workers...
Curated OER
History Matters: Ideas in Conflict: Opposing Views of the Cripple Creek Strike
The violent strike in Cripple Creek, Colorado, pitted the Western Federation of Miners against the mine owners. Read these statements by the two organizations giving their views of what happened in that conflict.
Shmoop University
Shmoop: Labor in the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was a period of terrible labor violence, as industrialists and workers fought for control of the workplace. Workers organized the first large American labor unions during the Gilded Age, while employers tried to stop the...
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: The Iron Horse: Labor Conflicts and Unionism
This several page chapter from the site From Revolution to Reconstruction outlines the growth of the union in the railroad industry in the late 19th century. Read about the strikes, working conditions, the beginning of the American...