Working History

Back to School

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 19:19:10 +0000

School may have returned for the fall, but what are the challenges facing teachers unions and their members as we approach the midway point of Trump 2.0?

In this week's episode of Working History, Joan Flores-Villalobos met with UTLA member Jake Roth, labor organizer Katie Miles from UC Berkeley, and historian Nick Juravich from UMass Boston to discuss how unions are confronting budgetary shortfalls, ICE raids, and how effective reform can only take place when community and labor work together.

The Handoff

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:31:07 +0000

It's official, "Working History" is back! In our first episode back, Beth English—the founder, host, and producer of "Working History" vol 1—interviews Sarah McNamara, president of the Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), Eileen Boris, president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), Julie Greene, editor of LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, and Mae Ngai, senior editor of International Labor and Working-Class History (ILWCH). Together they discuss their vision for the podcast, developments in labor history, global authoritarianism, and labor issues past and present.

Working History Reboot Promo

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:11:26 +0000

After several long years off the air, the beloved labor history podcast is back!

Now brought to you by the Southern Labor Studies Association, the Labor and Working-Class History Association, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, and International Labor and Working-Class History.

New episodes will drop weekly, starting Thursday, September 24, 2026. Follow along and stay tuned for more Working History!

Fall for Liberation with Maria Harmon

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:20:17 +0000

Step Up Louisiana co-founder and co-director Maria Harmon joins the podcast to talk about the group’s Freedom Summer-inspired voter turnout campaigns and grassroots mobilization efforts in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Jefferson Parish, New Orleans’ proposed Workers Bill of Rights, and the future of economic and education justice organizing in Louisiana.

Organizing Faculty in Florida with Paul Ortiz

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 12:49:13 +0000

Dr. Paul Ortiz, a professor of labor history at Cornell’s ILR School, joins co-host Olivia Paschal to discuss the history of higher education labor organizing in Florida, the resurgence of right-wing and austerity politics in public universities, and Dr. Ortiz’s work in higher education labor organizing. Until last year, Dr. Ortiz was a professor of history and director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, where he spent fifteen years. Dr. Ortiz is also the past president of United Faculty of Florida-UF and has organized with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and other labor organizing groups. His books include An African American and Latinx History of the United States and Emancipation Betrayed. Correction: In the episode, Olivia says that public-sector workers in Virginia can't collectively bargain. While that is true for state-level public sector workers (like university employees), collective bargaining is possible on the local level thanks to a 2020 law that gives local governments and school boards the authority to allow collective bargaining. Collective bargaining for all!

The Present and Future of Southern Labor: The UAW’s Historic Win at Volkswagen

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:47:51 +0000

Earlier this year, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted to join the UAW in a landslide. The Southern Labor Studies Association held our biannual meeting at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga last week, just as UAW Local 42 began negotiating its first contract. This panel, recorded live at the conference, is moderated by labor journalist Sarah Jaffe and features Zach Costello of UAW Local 42’s organizing committee; Chris Brooks, chief strategist at the UAW; Michael Gilliland, the organizing director of CALEB in Chattanooga; and labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein.

Beyond Norma Rae

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 11:08:28 +0000

Welcome to a new season of Working History! Series co-host Dave Anderson talks with Aimee Loiselle about her book Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class

Southern Exposure at 50: Sue Thrasher, Bob Hall, and Leah Wise

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:45:54 +0000

This week’s episode features a panel recorded live at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Southern Exposure magazine, held in March at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library. The panel, which reflects on the founding of the Institute for Southern Studies and the creation of Southern Exposure, features Sue Thrasher, a co-founder of the Institute who later worked at the Highlander Center; Leah Wise, one of the Institute’s early staff members and later the director of Southerners for Economic Justice; and Bob Hall, the founding editor of Southern Exposure, who spent many years at the Institute and was the longtime executive director of Democracy North Carolina. It is moderated by Chip Hughes, an early Institute staffer himself and occupational health and safety organizer before a career in public health. Produced in partnership with the Institute for Southern Studies. Show Notes: Episode transcription: https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/11/why-we-did-what-we-did-reflections-sue-thrasher-leah-wise-and-bob-hall Visit the Southern Exposure digital archive: https://www.facingsouth.org/southern-exposure A note from the archives editor: https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/03/archive-time-crisis More about the 50th anniversary event: https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/03/gathering-marks-half-century-southern-exposures-founding

Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 15:37:42 +0000

Jennifer Brooks, Professor of History at Auburn University, discusses her book Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama, beginning with the book's origin story and then explaining the significance of Chinese and European immigrants in the New South and their interactions with employers, unions, African-Americans, the region's racial regime, and its legal system.

Working in the Magic City: Moral Economy in Early Twentieth-Century Miami

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 23:18:52 +0000

Thomas Castillo discusses his book Working in the Magic City: Moral Economy in Early Twentieth-Century Miami, beginning with the book’s origin story, and then tracing Miami's working-class history from World War I to the mid-1930s.

Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 23:04:22 +0000

Jefferson Cowie discusses his book Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, beginning with the book’s origin story, and then tracing the use of "freedom" to dominate others in Barbour County, Alabama, from Indian Removal in the 1830s through the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s Find information about the book at the publisher’s page. https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/jefferson-cowie/freedoms-dominion/9781541672819/ Find the New York Times review of the book. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/books/review/freedoms-dominion-jefferson-cowie.html

Labor Journalism, Farmworkers, and Reynolds Tobacco with Victoria Bouloubasis

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 17:32:45 +0000

Journalist Victoria Bouloubasis discusses her career reporting on agricultural and food labor in North Carolina, her approach to labor journalism, and how she uses histories in her work. Show Notes: "A North Carolina Farmworker Was Accused of Abusing His Workers. Then Big Tobacco Backed His Election," by Ben Stockton and Victoria Bouloubasis, Mother Jones, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and Enlace Latino NC: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/tobacco-reynolds-north-carolina-brent-jackson-tbij/ "How a Tobacco Company Funds a Mega-Farmer’s Political Ambitions That Hurt Workers" podcast in English: https://soundcloud.com/enlacelatinoncpodcast/how-a-tobacco-company-funds-a-mega-farmers-political-ambitions-that-hurt-workers "Cómo una tabacalera financia las ambiciones políticas de granjero que perjudica a los trabajadores" podcast en español: https://soundcloud.com/enlacelatinoncpodcast/como-una-tabacalera-financia-las-ambiciones-politicas-de-un-granjero-que-perjudica-a-los-trabajadores Victoria's reporting for Enlace Latino NC: https://enlacelatinonc.org/author/victoria-bouloubasis/ Victoria's reporting for Southerly: https://southerlymag.org/author/victoria-bouloubasis/

Citizen and Other: Puerto Rican Farmworkers in the United States

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 10:53:31 +0000

Ismael García Colón discusses his new book, Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire, Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers, and their labor experiences in the post-World War II United States.

Labor, Capital, and Politics in the Industrial South

Thu, 07 May 2020 19:57:35 +0000

Michael Goldfield discusses his new book, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s, union organization in the South's leading industrial sectors, and how contests between labor and capital in the New Deal-era South continue to shape American politics today.

Race, Class, and Communism in the Jim Crow South

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 12:31:52 +0000

Mary Stanton discusses her book, Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930-1950, New Deal-era political activism, and movements for racial, economic, and social justice in the Jim Crow South.

Politics of the Pantry

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 14:57:44 +0000

Emily E. LB. Twarog discusses her book, POLITICS OF THE PANTRY, the consumer activism of American housewives, and food's central role in consumer politics in the twentieth-century United States.

Southern Sisters and Social Justice in the Jim Crow South

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:30:42 +0000

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall discusses her new book, SISTERS AND REBELS: A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE SOUTH, the southern upbringing of Grace and Katharine Lumpkin, their social activism, and contributions to the overlapping labor, feminist, and civil rights ferment in the pre-World War II South.

Making the Woman Worker

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 13:03:27 +0000

Eileen Boris discusses her new book MAKING THE WOMAN WORKER: PRECARIOUS LABOR AND THE FIGHT FOR GLOBAL STANDARDS, the history of the ILO's labor protections for women, domestic and home workers in the Global North and Global South, and ongoing fights to recognize precarious labor from the care economy to the gig economy.

Race, Slavery, and Psychiatry

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 17:33:47 +0000

Dr. Wendy Gonaver discusses her book, "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840-1880," the Eastern Lunatic Asylum in Virginia, and the roles that race, the institution of slavery, and slave labor played in the development of psychiatric diagnosis and care through the nineteenth century and beyond.

Reconciling a Slaveholding Past

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:01:50 +0000

Jody Allen, Assistant Professor of History at the College of William and Mary and Director of The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation, discusses William and Mary's slaveholding past and the genesis, research, and ongoing community outreach of The Lemon Project.

Beef: Exploitation, Innovation, and How Meat Changed America

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 11:24:37 +0000

Joshua Specht discusses his new book, RED MEAT REPUBLIC, and how the history of beef production tells the story of broad changes in the American economy, society and political landscape during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Appalachia: A Regional Reckoning

Thu, 23 May 2019 14:01:44 +0000

Anthony Harkins (Western Kentucky University) and Meredith McCarroll (Bowdin College) discuss their edited volume, APPALACHIAN RECKONING: A REGION RESPONDS TO HILLBILLY ELEGY, the complexities of the region known as Appalachia, and challenging popular stereotypes of the region and the people who live there.

”You Can’t Eat Coal”: Women’s Social Justice Activism in Appalachia

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 15:10:33 +0000

Jessica Wilkerson, Assistant Professor of History and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, discusses her book, "To Live Here You Have to Fight," and the recent history of feminist social justice activism in Appalachia.

Novelist Wiley Cash on “The Last Ballad” and the Loray Mill Strike

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 19:28:03 +0000

Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash discusses his novel, "The Last Ballad," writing fiction inspired by the South, and exploring the complexities of southern class, race, and gender relations against the backdrop of the 1929 Loray Mill strike.

Reconsidering Southern Labor History

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 11:55:50 +0000

Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt discuss their new edited volume, Reconsidering Southern Labor History, the nexus of race, class and power in the history of labor in the South, and how a new generation of southern labor scholars are changing our understanding of labor's past, present and future in the region.

Slavery and Memory

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 14:53:20 +0000

Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, Professors of History at California State University—Fresno, discuss their co-authored book, Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy, competing narratives about slavery in the South, and the fraught history of race, memory and memorialization in the region.

Revisioning the American Past though African American and Latinx History

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:35:26 +0000

Paul Ortiz, Associate Professor and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, discusses his most recent book, An African American and Latinx History of the United States, the myth of American exceptionalism, and globalizing America's past.

Shaping a New Conservatism in the South

Thu, 29 Mar 2018 10:26:15 +0000

Katherine Rye Jewell, Assistant Professor of History at Fitchburg State University, discusses her book, Dollars for Dixie, and the evolution of political and economic conservatism in the twentieth-century South.

Murder, Race and (In)Justice

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 16:24:07 +0000

Karen Cox, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discusses her new book, Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South, and what one murder case in 1930s Mississippi reveals about race relations, criminal justice, and life in the Jim Crow South.

”Hillbilly Hellraisers” and Rethinking the Roots of Populist Politics

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 12:11:49 +0000

J. Blake Perkins, assistant professor of history at Williams Baptist College, discusses his new book, Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks, regional relations with the federal government, and the evolution of grassroots politics.

Poor Whites in the Slave South

Wed, 25 Oct 2017 10:12:08 +0000

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South.

The High Cost of Cheap Food

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 10:01:24 +0000

Bryant Simon, Professor of History at Temple University, discusses his new book, The Hamlet Fire: A Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives, and the tragic consequences of the ethos of "cheap" for workers, communities, and the nation.

A New Narrative for Labor in the 1970s (Labor Day Episode 2017)

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 10:44:00 +0000

Lane Windham, Associate Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, discusses her book, Knocking on Labor’s Door, and why the 1970s should be seen as more than a moment of decline for the U.S. labor movement.

Preserving Southern Labor’s Past

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 10:27:53 +0000

Traci JoLeigh Drummond, archivist for the Southern Labor Archives at Georgia State University in Atlanta, discusses the preservation of materials related to southern labor history, new collections open to researchers, digital access to archival sources, and what makes a collection of records "archive worthy."

LGBT Discrimination and Activism in the Southern Workplace

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 10:57:52 +0000

Joshua Hollands, of the Institute of the Americas at University College London, discusses his award-winning essay, “There’s a Bigot in Your Biscuit’: Workplace Discrimination at Cracker Barrel, Civil Rights, and Corporate Activism in the Southern United States,” and the past and present of LGBT discrimination and activism in the southern workplace.

Southern Small Farmers Standing Their Ground

Wed, 31 May 2017 10:51:50 +0000

Professor Adrienne Petty discusses her book, Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War, the black and white farmers in the South who were part of the "small farming class," and their evolving strategies for holding onto their land through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Freedom Struggles in the Post-Civil Rights Rural South

Wed, 03 May 2017 10:34:52 +0000

Professor Greta de Jong of the University of Nevada, Reno, discusses her book, You Can't Eat Freedom, rural organizing, social justice movements, and the connected histories of the Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty in the US South.

From Indentured Servant to Modern-Day Guestworker

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 10:57:15 +0000

Professor Cindy Hahamovitch of the University of Georgia discusses her research connecting the global histories of 19th-century indentured servants and today's guestworkers.

The Long History of Mexican Migration to the Deep South

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:37:43 +0000

Professor Julie Weise of the University of Oregon discusses her book, Corazón de Dixie, the long history of Mexican migration to states in the Deep South, and the roots of anti-immigrant politics and policies in the region today.

Race, Identity, and Memory

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 14:32:17 +0000

Professor Blain Roberts of California State University, Fresno, talks about intersections of race, identity, and memory in the South in a wide-ranging discussion that starts in the segregated beauty parlors of the Jim Crow era and ends with remembrances of slavery in modern-day Charleston, South Carolina.

What Does ”Working Class” Mean in American Politics?

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 13:27:08 +0000

Professor Robyn Muncy of the University of Maryland discusses the history of the term "working class" and its uses in American politics from the 1930s to today.

Migrant Workers and Labor Relations from South Texas to the Nation

Wed, 25 May 2016 13:59:39 +0000

John Weber, Assistant Professor of History at Old Dominion University, discusses his book, "From South Texas to the Nation," migrant agricultural labor, immigration policy, and the long-term impacts of the labor relations model that developed in South Texas during the early twentieth century.

Social Justice from the U.S. South to South Africa

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:17:58 +0000

Alex Lichtenstein, Associate Professor of History at Indiana University, discusses his new book with co-author Rick Halpern, "Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid," photojournalism, and writing transnational histories of labor and social justice movements.

Academic Publishing in the Digital Age

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 14:53:01 +0000

Derek Krissoff, Director of the West Virginia University Press, discusses academic publishing and university presses, the open access movement, and current trends in history publishing.

Justice for a Toxic Town

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 17:41:57 +0000

Professor Ellen Griffith Spears of the University of Alabama, author of "Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town," discusses the decades long struggle for environmental and civil rights justice in Anniston, Alabama, and broader lessons to be learned from this fight to address one community's exposure to toxic chemicals.

Southern Histories through Women’s Words

Tue, 09 Feb 2016 14:47:25 +0000

Professors Melissa Walker of Converse College and Giselle Roberts of Australia’s La Trobe University, editors of the Women’s Diaries and Letters of the South series, discuss the field of documentary editing and how the personal writings of southern women reveal the broader history of life in the U.S. South during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Roots of the Modern Anti-Union Movement

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:39:21 +0000

Professor Chad Pearson of Collin College, author of "Reform or Repression," traces the roots of modern anti-unionism in the U.S. to the early 20th century open shop movement and a push by business interests nationwide to break unions and stall the momentum of organized labor.

The White Whale: Why Moby Dick Is a Story about the Fate of Southern Labor in the Age of Slavery

Tue, 29 Dec 2015 12:51:53 +0000

Scott Nelson, Legum Professor of History at the College of William & Mary and SLSA’s immediate past president, presents the lecture, “The White Whale: Why Moby Dick Is a Story about the Fate of Southern Labor in the Age of Slavery.” The lecture and Q&A session were recorded at the SLSA luncheon at the 2015 Southern Historical Association meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas.

A Lifetime of Building Solidarity

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 11:10:51 +0000

Professor Michael Honey of the University of Washington, Tacoma, discusses the documentary that he directed and co-produced, "Love and Solidarity: The Story of Rev. James Lawson," and Lawson's work of building solidarity and movements for social justice from the Civil Rights Era to today.

Women Apparel Workers in the U.S. South

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 16:37:02 +0000

Professor Michelle Haberland of Georgia Southern University, author of "Striking Beauties: Women Apparel Workers in the U.S. South," discusses the dynamics of gender, class, race and globalization in the southern apparel industry from the 1930s to today.

Religion’s Role in Organizing the South

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 11:34:42 +0000

Professor Kenneth Fones-Wolf of West Virginia University discusses his book, co-authored with Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, "Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South," the role of religion in the CIO's Operation Dixie, and provides perspective on the participation of faith communities in the modern labor movement.

Disaster Response in Historical Perspective

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 11:43:35 +0000

Professor Jacob Remes of SUNY Empire State College discusses his book, "Disaster Citizenship," and challenges prevailing assumptions about how ordinary people, governments, and institutions act in the wake of natural disasters.

Black Women Convict Laborers in the New South

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 12:12:03 +0000

Professor Talitha LeFlouria, a fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, discusses her book, "Chained in Silence," and the lives, labors, and legacies of incarcerated black women and the convict lease system in the early 20th century South.

“Best True Stories of Life and Work on the Panama Canal”

Wed, 26 Aug 2015 10:03:44 +0000

Julie Greene, Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the forthcoming book, “Box 25: The World of Caribbean Workers,” discusses the men who built the Panama Canal, working and living conditions in the Canal Zone, and how U.S. expansionism at the turn of the twentieth century fueled the growth of a transnational working class.

Immigrant Rights, Detentions, and Activism

Tue, 04 Aug 2015 10:33:54 +0000

Activist and grassroots organizer Anton Flores of Alterna discusses immigrant rights, federal immigration policy, and the detention of undocumented immigrants at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. Guest hosted by Professor Jennifer Brooks of Auburn University.

Tobacco, Family Farms, and Federal Policy

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 09:58:43 +0000

Professor Evan Bennett of Florida Atlantic University, author of "When Tobacco Was King," discusses the development and demise of family tobacco farms, tobacco farming culture, and the New Deal's Federal Tobacco Program.

The Labor Question and Higher Education

Thu, 09 Jul 2015 09:57:27 +0000

Professor Elizabeth Shermer of Loyola University Chicago explores the impacts of corporate influence and the politics shaping higher education, past and present.

The Roots of Black Protest Politics

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 18:33:10 +0000

Professor Jay Driskell of Hood College, author of "Schooling Jim Crow," traces the roots of black protest politics to early 20th century Atlanta and the fight for equal education.