A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis

This book describes ten critical worker's strikes in American labor history, including the Lowell Mill Girls strike, the Bread and Roses strike, and the Justice for Janitors strike.

Strike-Breaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in 20th Century America by Stephen H. Norwood

This is the first systematic study of strikebreaking, intimidation, and anti-unionism in the United States, subjects essential to a full understanding of labor’s fortunes in the 20th century. Paradoxically, the country that pioneered the expansion of civil liberties allowed corporations to assemble private armies to disrupt union organizing, spy on workers, and break strikes. Using a social-historical approach, Stephen Norwood focuses on the mercenaries the corporations enlisted in their anti-union efforts — particularly college students, African American men, the unemployed, and men associated with organized crime. Norwood also considers the paramilitary methods unions developed to counter mercenary violence. The book covers a wide range of industries across much of the country.

Kids on Strike by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Kids on Strike describes the conditions and treatment that drove workers, including many children, to various strikes, from the mill workers' strikes in 1828 and 1836 and the coal strikes at the turn of the century to the work of Mother Jones on behalf of child workers.

Silk Stockings and Socialism: Philadelphia's Radical Hosiery Workers from the Jazz Age to the New Deal by Sharon McConnell-Sidorick

To get their rightful due as producers, the young women and men who worked in the hosiery mills of Kensington, the working class heart of Philadelphia, organized the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (AFFFHW), a movement that swept Philadelphia and eventually had a significant impact on the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the New Deal, and labor feminism. In the first history of this remarkable union, Sharon McConnell-Sidorick tells the story of how radical socialist unionists explicitly tapped into Jazz Age culture to build a militant youth movement whose young men and women continued dancing, partying, and flouting Prohibition while at the same time attending labor education sessions and engaging in battles with police.

Three Strikes: Labor's Heartland Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans by Stephen Franklin

Three Strikes explores the devastating impact of major labor disputes in Decatur, Illinois, during the 1990s. The book focuses on strikes at Bridgestone/Firestone, Caterpillar, and A.E. Staley, highlighting how these conflicts shifted the balance of power from labor to management and left lasting scars on the community.

Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America by Joe Burns

If the American labor movement is to rise again, it will not be as a result of electing Democrats, the passage of legislation, or improved methods of union organizing. Rather, workers will need to rediscover the power of the strike. Not the ineffectual strike of today, where employees meekly sit on picket lines waiting for scabs to take their jobs, but the type of strike capable of grinding industries to a halt-the kind employed up until the 1960s. In Reviving the Strike, union negotiator Joe Burns draws on labor economics, history, and current analysis to show how only a campaign of civil disobedience can overcome an illegitimate system of labor control that has been specifically constructed over the past 30 years to rein in the power of the American worker. The book challenges prevailing views within the labor movement that say that tactics such as organizing workers or amending labor law can resolve the crisis of the American worker. Instead, Reviving the Strike offers a fundamentally different solution to the current labor crisis, showing how collective bargaining backed by a strike capable of inflicting economic harm upon an employer is the only way for workers to break free of the repressive system that has been inflicted upon them for the past three decades.

The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, The Gilded Age, and The Greatest Labor Uprising in America by Jack Kelly

The Edge of Anarchy by Jack Kelly offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, and riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon, the U.S. Army was on the march, and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities. This epochal tale offers fascinating portraits of two iconic characters of the age. George Pullman, who amassed a fortune by making train travel a pleasure, thought the model town that he built for his workers would erase urban squalor. Eugene Debs, founder of the nation's first industrial union, was determined to wrench power away from the reigning plutocrats. The clash between the two men's conflicting ideals pushed the country to what the U.S. Attorney General called "the ragged edge of anarchy." Many of the themes of The Edge of Anarchy could be taken from today's headlines — upheaval in America's industrial heartland, wage stagnation, breakneck technological change, and festering conflict over race, immigration, and inequality. With the country now in a New Gilded Age, this look back at the violent conflict of an earlier era offers illuminating perspectives along with a breathtaking story of a nation on the edge.

Black Coal and Red Bandanas by Raymond Tyler

In the early 20th century, strikes and union battles were common in industrial centers throughout the US. But nothing compared to the class warfare of the West Virginia Mine Wars. The origins of this protracted rebellion were in the dictatorial rule of the coal companies over the proud, multi-racial, immigrant and native-born miners of Appalachia. Our illustrated history begins with Mary Harris "Mother" Jones's arrival at the turn of the century. White-haired, matronly, and fiercely socialist, Jones became known as the "miners' angel," and helped turn the fledgling United Mine Workers into the nation's most powerful labor union. "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living," was her famous battle cry. In 1912, miners led by stubborn Frank Keeney struck against harsh conditions in the work camps of Paint and Cabin Creeks. Coal operators responded by enlisting violent Baldwin-Felts guards. The ensuing battles and murderous events caused the governor to declare and execute martial law on a scale unprecedented in the US. On May 19, 1920, in response to evictions by coal company agents, gunshots rang through the streets of a small town in "Bloody Mingo" county. In an event soon known as the "Matewan Massacre," the pro-union, quick-draw chief of police Smilin' Sid Hatfield became an unexpected celebrity--but also a marked man. Events climax with the dramatic Battle of Blair Mountain that pitched the spontaneous Red Neck Army of 10,000 armed strikers against a paid army of gun thugs in the largest labor uprising in US history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. This graphic interpretation of people's history features unforgettable main characters while also displaying the diverse rank-and-file workers who stood in solidarity during this struggle.

A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Todd-Breland

In 2012, Chicago's school year began with the city's first teachers' strike in a quarter century and ended with the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history. On one side, a union leader and veteran Black woman educator drew upon organizing strategies from Black and Latinx communities to demand increased school resources. On the other side, the mayor, backed by the Obama administration, argued that only corporate-style education reform could set the struggling school system aright. The stark differences in positions resonated nationally, challenging the long-standing alliance between teachers' unions and the Democratic Party. Elizabeth Todd-Breland recovers the hidden history underlying this battle.

The Mine Wars: The Bloody Fight for Workers' Rights in the West Virginia Coal Fields by Steve Watkins

The true story of the West Virginia coal miners who ignited the largest labor uprising in American history.