Co-sponsored by the the History Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, and the Labor and Working Class History Association
Seminars are held on Fridays from 3:00–5:00 PM
at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton Street, Chicago, IL.
Papers are pre-circulated. For a copy e-mail scholl@newberry.org.
2007-2008
September 21, 2007—Jennifer Luff
October 26, 2007—Kathryn Oberdeck
December 7, 2007—Marc Rodriguez
December 15, 2007—Melvyn Ely Symposium
January 18, 2008—Dennis Deslippe
February 15, 2008—Molly Hudgens
March 14, 2008—Jeffrey Helgeson
April 18, 2008—S. Paul O'Hara
Printable 8½” x 11” pdf Schedule
September 21, 2007— Bulwark Against Radicalism: Labor Conservatives in World War I
Jennifer Luff, University of California at Los Angeles
Commentators: Rosemary Feurer, Northern Illinois University, and Colleen Doody, DePaul University
“Organized labor has two tasks,” American Federation of Labor president William Green announced in 1927. “The first is to use its strength to advance the interests of workingmen and the second is unalterable opposition to communism and all other isms.” Beginning with the Bolshevik Revolution, the AFL fought communists in its unions and helped build the foundations of American anticommunism. This paper describes the origins of labor anticommunism during World War I, when AFL leaders tracked a German spy infiltrating American unions, sent detectives to IWW meetings, and collaborated with the federal Bureau of Investigation and Lusk Committee investigators.
October 26, 2007— Of Tubs and Toil: Locating Kohler Village in an Empire of Hygiene, 1920–2000
Kathryn Oberdeck, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Commentators: Joseph Bigott, Purdue University at Calumet, and Susan Hirsch, Loyola University Chicago
This paper probes the intersections of industrial and domestic toil that can be plotted on the global map of modern hygiene associated with modern American bathrooms and kitchens. Focusing on the products, publicity and marketing strategies of the Kohler Company and its welfare-capitalist village of Kohler, Wisconsin, it traces social categories associated with the “labor lightening” potentials of the company’s tubs, toilets, and electric generators as these were figured in publicity and fought over by various groups of producers, consumers and users between the 1920s and the 1990s.
December 7, 2007— Youth Acculturation and Revolt in Mexican American South Texas: Understanding the Roots of Working-Class Ethnic Protest after 1960
Marc Rodriguez, Notre Dame University
Commentators: Juan Mora-Torres, DePaul University, and Ramón Gutiérrez, University of Chicago
This paper, very much a work-in-progress, seeks to reframe a two-chapter section of a current book project into a single chapter on teen organization and acculturation among mainly Mexican American migrant farm worker teens in Crystal City, Texas after 1950. The first section of the paper examines political organizing in the high school context with attention to ethnic block voting, sports, and other issues related to teen life in Texas. The second section of the paper examines a well known political movement with an emphasis on the role played by teen and young adults in an effort that involved the Teamsters union and the Political Association of Spanish-speaking Organizations (PASSO). These efforts culminated in the 1963 election of an “all Latin” slate to the city council, a dramatic event in Mexican American history which brought national attention to Crystal City and marked what some have termed the “first uprising” of the “Chicano Movement.” Rather than a sudden political movement, the 1963 election when placed within the context of the broader local and national history of mobilization and teen acculturation and political education emerges as one important peak in the long development of Mexican American political consciousness in Texas and the nation.
December 15, 2007 The recent publication of the award-winning book by Melvyn Ely, historian at the College of William and Mary, raises numerous questions about the nature of slavery and freedom in the first half of the 19th century. “Rethinking Black Freedom in the Era of Slavery” aims to critically re-examine the place of free African Americans, the character of race relations, and the challenges local history can pose to the grander, sweeping narratives of American history. Commentators: January 18, 2008— “We Must Bring Together a New Coalition”: The Challenge of Working-Class White Ethnics to Color-Blind Conservatism in the 1970s
Symposium co-sponsored by The Historical Society, 11:00am-3:00pm
Rethinking Black Freedom in the Era of Slavery: The Challenge of Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War featuring author Melvin Ely
Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago
Corey Capers, University of Illinois at Chicago
Jane Dailey, University of Chicago
Leon Fink, University of Illinois at Chicago
Michael Perman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Julie Saville, University of Chicago
James Schmidt, Northern Illinois University
Dennis Deslippe, Franklin & Marshall College
Commentators: Martha Biondi, Northwestern University, and Jack Metzgar, Roosevelt University
This essay examines working-class white ethnics’ rejection of middle-class suburbanite notions of racial innocence, meritocratic individualism, and idealized equality in post-civil rights America. Most scholarship in white ethnicity does not adequately capture the complex and often contradictory expressions of “ethniclass” identity in a decade characterized by working-class revolt, backlash, and retreat. I focus on progressive white ethnic leaders allied with the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs and their imprint on civic and popular discourse in a period where, despite its powerful effects in the corridors of power, color-blind conservatism failed to capture the views of a majority of white Americans.
February 15, 2008— “Bowlers First, Union Men Second”: The Politics of Race, Work, and Leisure in the UAW’s Campaign to Desegregate Bowling
Molly Hudgens, University of Chicago
Commentators: Erik Gellman, Roosevelt University and Lewis Erenberg, Loyola University Chicago
In the years following the Second World War, the United Auto Workers (UAW-CIO) challenged the discriminatory policies of the American Bowling Congress (ABC) – the official governing body that set rules and regulations for league bowling, but which also limited its membership to “white men.” The UAW’s Recreation Department, after years of disregarding the complaints of nonwhite union members excluded from union bowling, spearheaded a national campaign to “democratize” the “almost-all-American” game. The UAW’s fair play campaign sheds light on the ways industrial workers negotiated race and labor politics in commercial public space, and the extent to which workers remained divided despite their participation in the world of mass culture and consumption.
March 14, 2008— “Will ‘our people’ be any better off after this war?”: Spaces of Opportunity in Black Chicago, 1938–1947
Jeffrey Helgeson, University of Illinois at Chicago
Commentators: Adam Green, University of Chicago and Lionel Kimble, Chicago State University
World War II was a watershed moment for black Americans, when black employment in the Chicago area grew from 80,347 to 222,600—an increase from 4.9% to 11.7% of the total (at a time when the black population increased from 7.1 to 9.4 percent of the total population). This paper shows that the local fight for fair employment—a principal goal of the “Double V” campaign for victory over fascism abroad and racism at home—not only energized black Americans’ civil rights consciousness, but also invigorated and revised “race conscious” economic nationalism in the Black Metropolis.
April 18, 2008— Working-Class Utopia: Work, Masculinity, and Vice in Post-war Gary, Indiana
S. Paul O’Hara, Xavier University
Commentators: Marc Rodriguez, Notre Dame University, and Robert Bruno, University of Illinois at Chicago
Despite the national reputation of Gary, Indiana, as an industrial dystopia of crime, corruption and decay, the city’s residents created a community of hard work and ethnic loyalty. The workers of Gary built their identity around a working-class masculinity that embraced hard work, constant pollution, toughness, vice, and corruption. In so doing, the narratives became descriptions not of industrial dystopia but rather industrial utopia on working-class terms. While this class identity stood in contrast to postwar domesticity, suburbanization, and the middle-class company man, it also excluded other residents from this culture of work.
We will pre-circulate papers to those planning to attend. If you cannot attend and want to read a paper, please contact the author directly. E-mail scholl@newberry.org,or call (312) 255-3524 to receive a copy of the paper. Please include your e-mail address in all correspondence.