Fr. 36.50

Class War, USA - Dispatches from Workers' Struggles in American History

English · Paperback / Softback

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Description

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An engaging collection of riveting stories about working people in United States history fighting back in the darkest times.


List of contents










Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction



  1. Joe Hill




Labor’s Best-Known Songwriter Refused to be Buried in the State of Utah

  • Lowell, Massachusetts


  • America’s Very First Union of Working Women

  • The Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike


  • African American Women with the Power to Call a General Strike—in 1881

  • Pullman


  • Former Slaves Were Hired to Staff Pullman Box Cars Because They "Knew How to Be Servile" So They Formed a Union

  • Chicago


  • The Haymarket Massacre of 1886 and the Pullman Strike of 1894: Chicago Was the Center of Both Struggles, and Things Got White-Hot

  • Eugene Debs


  • The Carnegies and Rockefellers Tried to Silence Debs with Jail Time. That Didn’t Stop Him

  • Colorado’s Mining Frontier


  • Cripple Creek, 1894, and Ludlow, 1913: Two Very Different Battles, and Both Were Shocking

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Fire


  • One Hundred Twenty-Three Young Women Who Went to Work One Day in a New York Factory Never Came Home. It Changed Our Country Forever

  • Christmas Eve, 1913


  • Fifty-Nine Children Died on Christmas Eve, 1913, and It Broke Hearts Around the World

  • Christmas Truce


  • These Soldiers Were Thought to Be Enemies, but They Played Soccer and Celebrated Christmas Eve,1914, Together

  • The Battle of Blair Mountain


  • It Ended When Federal Troops Were Called Against Thirteen Thousand Miners It Was "Civil War in the Hills"

  • Tulsa, Oklahoma


  • Ever Heard of "Black Wall Street"? There’s a Reason You Might Not Have

  • Bonus Army


  • The Great Depression Left WWI Vets with the Short End of the Stick, They Weren’t Going to Sit Back and Take It

  • The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934


  • It Began with Truck Drivers Who Wanted a Union. They Became Teamsters

  • Sitting Down, Striking Flint


  • These Images Might Look Like Some Lazy Workers, Up to No Good But They’re Actually Heroes

  • The Battle of the Overpass


  • A PR Disaster for Ford Motor Company that Kick-Started the UAW

  • "Rosie the Riveter"


  • Remember the "Rosie the Riveter" Image Pretty Much Everybody Knows? (Ahem)

  • United Farmworkers


  • That Time When 14 Million Americans Stopped Eating Grapes, Because Farmworkers Asked Them To

  • The Stonewall Rebellion


  • A Civil Rights Battle for the Times

  • Wildcat


  • In 1970, Postal Workers Suddenly Walked off the Job. The Nation, the Union, and Even President Nixon Were Caught by Surprise

  • Attica


  • What Actually Happened at Attica in 1971 Is Still Largely Kept Hidden—but Clues and Facts Are Coming Out Even Now

  • The Watsonville, California, Cannery Strike


  • This Is What Solidarity Looks Like

  • UPS


  • Those Packages Won’t Move Themselves: Big Brown Versus the IBT

  • The Fight for $15


  • The Long Game, and Why It’s Part of Labor’s Future

  • Woody Guthrie


  • Why Several Verses of "This Land Is Your Land" Are Usually Left Off When It’s Taught in School

    Index


    About the author

    Brandon Weber (1963-2020) wrote for The Progressive, Upworthy, Big Think, and many other online publications, where wrote extensively on labor history and current events. He also was a union activist for more than 30 years.

    Summary

    An engaging collection of riveting stories about working people in United States history fighting back in the darkest times.

    Foreword

  • Promotion on the author's website and through his social media page which has over 500,000 followers.
  • Outreach to school and public libraries to purchase the book for their collections.
  • Excerpts sent out to union newsletters and posted online to drive books sales leading up to the publication date.
  • Promotion specifically targeting unions like SEIU and UFCW highlighting how the book can train low wage worker organizers and activists around Fight for Fifteen campaigns in basic labor history.
  • Author available to tour nationally to promote the book.
  • Outreach to teachers and labor history professors to use the book as instructional material for their classes.
  • Excerpts on Upworthy website with direct links to online book purchasing options.
  • Promotion at education and teacher union conferences promoting the use of the book as part of classroom instruction in labor and US history.
  • Features and/or excerpts in Rethinking Schools, Jacobin and AFT and NEA magazines.
  • Additional text

    "Brandon Weber knows how to tell a good story, and he has a knack for labor history. There are stories here you've never heard of and ones that you have — but read them all. They'll light a fire under you!"
    -Mrill Ingram, The Progressive


    "At a time when unions face the possibility of extinction, Brandon Weber’s Class War, USA shows us that working-class struggle is the only strategy that has ever advanced the labor movement historically—and is also the only way forward today. This book is indispensable reading for today’s generation of young workers who—through no fault of their own—have no knowledge of the US working class’ vast tradition of struggle, or its relevance for the future. At the same time, Class War, USA is just as valuable for those who have withstood the relentless assault on unions over the last four decades—and will undoubtedly find tremendous inspiration in the history Weber so convincingly tells. It is also worth noting that Weber also recounts the stories of working-class struggles far beyond the realm of the official union movement, including the Stonewall Rebellion that launched the gay liberation movement in 1969 and the Attica prison uprising in 1971. At fewer than 150 pages, written in accessible language, illustrated with an abundance of original photographs, this book should be on the coffee tables of all those invested in returning to a tradition of class struggle in the US."
    -Sharon Smith, author of Subterranean Fire

     

    "Brandon Weber’s Class War USA isn’t just a retelling of well-known and not-so-well-known strikes. Weber has done for a new generation of social and labor activists what Sid Lens did for an earlier one: bring to life the hard scrabble union, social, and political struggles of working class people from the past to the present. And by the way, in case you ever wondered why Woody Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land" never became the national anthem, Weber has the answer."
    -Kim Moody, a founder of Labor Notes and author of On New Terrain: How Capital is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War

     

    "Brandon Weber does a masterful job at succinctly bringing to life many gripping and insightful episodes from the rich history of American labor, allowing readers to draw invaluable lessons for today’s struggles. Yes, this was, and is, class war. In his colorful collection, Weber vividly shows that people working together can, against all odds in a culture that fetishizes individualism, bring about social progress. Now, let’s get these stories and lessons into the hands of those who buy into the 
    prevailing divisiveness and tribalism, so that they too can unite across racial, ethnic, gender and other barriers and be heard!" 
    -Dr. Thomas Greven, Freie Universität Berlin/Germany

    “[Class War, USA is] a brave attempt to focus attention on a subject, the need for strong unions, at a time when too many people appear to be dissatisfied with their situations, but don’t want to commit themselves to organisations which could help to resolve their problems.”—Northern Review of Books

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