Teaching Labor History

As part of the Beneath the Surface and Cast in Steel: Forging the American Industrial Union Movement digital project, the Special Collections Library hopes to encourage students and researchers of all ages to engage with the history of organized labor and industrial unionism in the United States.

In the hopes of supporting this effort, the Special Collections Library is excited to offer teaching tools that can be used and adapted to achieve the following learning objectives:

  • to understand the significant role of the organized labor movement on American politics in the period that oversaw the rise of industrial unionism and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1890-1952);
  • to advance a more nuanced comprehension of the role ethnicity, gender, and race on the rights of workers;
  • to demonstrate how disparity in the workforce created cycles of poverty and invisibility that continue through the contemporary moment; and
  • to imagine how collective action might present a better and more equitable future for American citizens and laborers more broadly.

Teachers and instructors interested in working with the collections digitized as a part of this project are encouraged to visit the individual sites for the following two prepared activities:

Teachers and instructors interested in working with the collections in person, should visit the Special Collections Library home page to request a customized instruction session.