Download or read book Homestead Steel Mill the Final Ten Years written by Mike Stout and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the famous Homestead steel strike of 1892 through the century-long fight for a union and union democracy, Homestead Steel Mill—the Final Ten Years is a case history on the vitality of organized labor. Written by fellow worker and musician Mike Stout, the book is an insider’s portrait of the union at the U.S. Steel’s Homestead Works, specifically the workers, activists, and insurgents that made up the radically democratic Rank and File Caucus from 1977 to 1987. Developing its own “inside-outside” approach to unionism, the Rank and File Caucus drastically expanded their sphere of influence so that, in addition to fighting for their own rights as workers, they fought to prevent the closures of other steel plants, opposed U.S. imperialism in Central America, fought for civil rights, and built strategic coalitions with local environmental groups. Mike Stout skillfully chronicles his experience in the takeover and restructuring of the union’s grievance procedure at Homestead by regular workers and put at the service of its thousands of members. Stout writes with raw honesty and pulls no punches when recounting the many foibles and setbacks he experienced along the way. The Rank and File Caucus was a profound experiment in democracy that was aided by the 1397 Rank and File newspaper—an ultimate expression of truth, democracy, and free speech that guaranteed every union member a valuable voice. Profusely illustrated with dozens of photographs, Homestead Steel Mill—the Final Ten Years is labor history at its best, providing a vivid account of how ordinary workers can radicalize their unions.
Download or read book Homestead written by William Serrin and published by Crown. This book was released on 1992 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the business, labor, and human history of Homestead, Pennsylvania, the heart of the American steel industry.
Download or read book The Homestead Strike of 1892 written by Arthur Burgoyne and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1893, the Rawsthorne Engraving and Printing Company published journalist Arthur Burgoyne’s complete history of the 1892 Homestead strike and the ensuing conflict between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Although popular at the time of publication, it fell out of print until the University of Pittsburgh Press revived it in the late 1970s. Burgoyne, one of Pittsburgh’s most skilled and sensitive journalists, offers an accurate, readable, and judiciously balanced history that gives crucial insight into a turbulent period in Pittsburgh’s history.
Download or read book Roots of Steel written by Deborah Rudacille and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the American economy seeks to restructure itself, Roots of Steel is a powerful, candid, and eye-opening reminder of the people who have been left behind. When Deborah Rudacille was a child in the working-class town of Dundalk, Maryland, a worker at the local Sparrows Point steel mill made more than enough to comfortably support a family. But the decline of American manufacturing in the decades since has put tens of thousands out of work and left the people of Dundalk pondering the broken promise of the American dream. In Roots of Steel, Rudacille combines personal narrative, interviews with workers, and extensive research to capture the character and history of this once-prosperous community.
Download or read book Fighting Times written by Jon Melrod and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deeply Personal, astutely political, Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War recounts the thirteen-year journey of Jonathan Melrod to harness working class militancy and jump start a revolution on the shop floor of American Motors. Melrod faces termination, dodges the FBI, outwits collaborators in the UAW, and becomes the central figure in a lawsuit against the labor newsletter Fighting Times, as he strives to build a class-conscious workers’ movement from the bottom up. A radical to the core, Melrod was a key part of campus insurrection at University of Wisconsin Madison. He left campus for the factory in 1973, hired along with hundreds of youthful job seekers onto the mind-numbing assembly line, Fighting Times paints a portrait of these rebellious and alienated youthful hires, many of whom were Black Vietnam vets. Containing dozens of archival photographs, Fighting Times captures the journey of a militant anti-racist revolutionary who rose to the highest elected ranks of his UAW local without compromising his politics or his dedication to building a class-conscious workers’ movement. The book will arm and inspire a new generation of labor organizers with the skills and attitude to challenge the odds and fight the egregious abuses of the exploitative capitalist system.
Download or read book Meet You in Hell written by Les Standiford and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-06-13 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two founding fathers of American industry. One desire to dominate business at any price. “Masterful . . . Standiford has a way of making the 1890s resonate with a twenty-first-century audience.”—USA Today “The narrative is as absorbing as that of any good novel—and as difficult to put down.”—Miami Herald The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the riveting story of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers’ strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, Meet You in Hell captures the majesty and danger of steel manufacturing, the rough-and-tumble of the business world, and the fraught relationship between “the world’s richest man” and the ruthless coke magnate to whom he entrusted his companies. The result is an extraordinary work of popular history. Praise for Meet You in Hell “To the list of the signal relationships of American history . . . we can add one more: Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick . . . The tale is deftly set out by Les Standiford.”—Wall Street Journal “Standiford tells the story with the skills of a novelist . . . a colloquial style that is mindful of William Manchester’s great The Glory and the Dream.”—Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “A muscular, enthralling read that takes you back to a time when two titans of industry clashed in a battle of wills and egos that had seismic ramifications not only for themselves but for anyone living in the United States, then and now.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
Download or read book The Next Shift written by Gabriel Winant and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award Winner of the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Winner of the C. L. R. James Award A ProMarket Best Political Economy Book of the Year Men in hardhats were once the heart of America’s working class; now it is women in scrubs. What does this shift portend for our future? Pittsburgh was once synonymous with steel. But today most of its mills are gone. Like so many places across the United States, a city that was a center of blue-collar manufacturing is now dominated by the service economy—particularly health care, which employs more Americans than any other industry. Gabriel Winant takes us inside the Rust Belt to show how America’s cities have weathered new economic realities. In Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods, he finds that a new working class has emerged in the wake of deindustrialization. As steelworkers and their families grew older, they required more health care. Even as the industrial economy contracted sharply, the care economy thrived. Hospitals and nursing homes went on hiring sprees. But many care jobs bear little resemblance to the manufacturing work the city lost. Unlike their blue-collar predecessors, home health aides and hospital staff work unpredictable hours for low pay. And the new working class disproportionately comprises women and people of color. Today health care workers are on the front lines of our most pressing crises, yet we have been slow to appreciate that they are the face of our twenty-first-century workforce. The Next Shift offers unique insights into how we got here and what could happen next. If health care employees, along with other essential workers, can translate the increasing recognition of their economic value into political power, they may become a major force in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book The River Ran Red written by David P. Demarest and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 1992-07-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The violence that erupted at Carnegie Steel's giant Homestead mill near Pittsburgh on July 6. 1892, caused a congressional investigation and trials for treason, motivated a nearly successful assassination attempt on Frick, contributed to the defeat of President Benjamin Harrison for a second term, and changed the course of the American labor movement. "The River Ran Red" commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Homestead strike of 1892. Instead of retelling the story of the strike, it recreates the events of that summer in excerpts from contemporary newspapers and magazines, reproductions of pen-and-ink sketches and photographs made on the scene, passages from the congressional investigation that resulted from the strike, first-hand accounts by observers and participants, and poems, songs, and sermons from across the country. Contributions by outstanding scholars provide the context for understanding the social and cultural aspects of the strike, as well as its violence. "The River Ran Red" is the collaboration of a team of writers, archivists, and historians, including Joseph Frazier Wall, who writes of the role of Andrew Carnegie at Homestead, and David Montgomery, who considers the significance of the Homestead Strike for the present. The book is both readable and richly illustrated. It recalls public and personal reactions to an event in our history who's reverberations can still be felt today.
Download or read book The Battle For Homestead 1880 1892 written by Paul Krause and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the fifty best books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly More than a century has passed since the infamous lockout at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. The dramatic and violent events of July 6, 1892, are among the mst familiar in the history of American labor. And yet, few historians have adequately addressed the issues and the culture that shaped that day. For many Americans, Homestead remains simply the story of a bloody clash between management and labor. In The Battle for Homestead, Paul Krause calls upon the methods and insights of labor history, intellectual history, anthropology, and the history of technology to situate the events of the lockout and their significance in the broad context of America’s Guilded Age. Utilizing extensive archival material, much of it heretofore unknown, he reconstructs the social, intellectual, and political climate of the burgeoning post-Civil War steel industry. The Battle for Homestead brings to life many of the individuals -both in and outside Homestead- who played a role in the events leading to July 1892. From the inventor of the modern Bessemer steel mill to the most obscure immigrant workers, from Christopher L. Magee, the “boss” of Pittsburgh machine politics, to Thomas A. Armstrong, the tireless editor of the National Labor Tribune, from the “Laird of Skibo” himself (Andrew Carnegie) to the labor leader and mayor of Homestead, “Old Beeswax” (Thomas W. Taylor), Krause shows how all these lives became intertwined, often in surprising and unpredictable ways, as the drama of the lockout unfolded. As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, the Homestead Lockout dramatized the all-important question: Can the land of industry and technological innovation continue to be “the land of the free”? Can material progress, with its inevitable social and economic inequities, be made compatible with the American commitment to democracy for all? Twentieth-century history has demonstrated all too clearly the intesity of this dilemma. In addressing some of the thorniest issues of the last century, The Battle for Homestead demonstrates the enduring legacy and relevance of Homestead over a century later.
Download or read book The Homestead Steel Strike of 1892 written by Nancy Whitelaw and published by Morgan Reynolds Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the events leading up to and occurring during the lockout and strike of steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, in 1892, and its impact upon American labor unions.
Download or read book Homestead written by Margaret Frances Byington and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Homestead and the Steel Valley written by Daniel J. Burns and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western Pennsylvania is dotted with what are known locally as mill towns, but few of these communities epitomize this definition more than the municipalities of Homestead, West Homestead, and Munhall. Commonly referred to as the Steel Valley, these towns were home to some of the greatest steel-producing operations in the world. As the Mon Valley's steel production answered the nation's call during two world wars, so did the workers who unloaded countless barges of coal and fed the mills' great furnaces that produced the material needed for weapons, armament, and tanks. Workers emigrated from every country in Europe to make their mark in America. Many of these people spoke little or no English and endured long hours of labor in often hazardous conditions. Their families brought with them the traditions of their varied European cultures, filling their communities with ethnic diversity. Through 200 photographs, Homestead and the Steel Valley conveys the proud heritage of three communities and their role in the nation's history.
Download or read book Earth at Risk written by Derrick Jensen and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In America, four hundred people own the wealth of more than half of the American population. We should not be saying tax the rich, but instead we should be saying take their money and redistribute it, take their property and redistribute it.” —Arundhati Roy Industrial civilization is devouring the planet and the future. The oceans are acidifying, whole mountains have been laid to waste, and the climate is teetering into chaos. Every biome is approaching collapse. And fifty years of environmentalism hasn’t even slowed the rate of destruction. Yet environmentalists are not considering strategies that might actually prevent the looming biocide we are facing. Until Earth at Risk. Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet is an annual conference featuring environmental thinkers and activists who are willing to ask the hardest questions about the seriousness of our situation. The conference is convened by Derrick Jensen, acclaimed author of Endgame, who has argued that we need a resistance movement against civilization itself. The twelve people in this volume present an impassioned critique of the dominant culture from every angle: William Catton Jr. explains ecological overshoot; Thomas Linzey gives a fiery call for community sovereignty; Jane Caputi exposes patriarchy’s mythic dismemberment of the Goddess; Aric McBay discusses historically effective resistance strategies; and Stephanie McMillan takes down capitalism. One by one, they build an unassailable case that we need to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet. These speakers offer their ideas on what can be done to build a real resistance movement, one that includes all levels of direct action—action that can actually match the scale of the problem. Earth at Risk includes: Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame, A Language Older than Words, and many others. Lierre Keith, author of The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability; coauthor of Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. Nora Barrows-Friedman, journalist and photographer; correspondent for outlets such as The Electronic Intifada, Al Jazeera, and Truthout.org. Jane Caputi, author of The Age of Sex Crime; Gossips, Gorgons, and Crones: The Fates of the Earth; and Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture. William Catton Jr., sociologist, author of Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, and Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse. Gail Dines, a founding member of Stop Porn Culture, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Thomas Linzey, executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Aric Mcbay, coauthor of Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. Stephanie Mcmillan, cartoonist; author of The Beginning of the American Fall; organizer for the anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist collective One Struggle. Riki Ott, marine biologist, author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Arundhati Roy, author of An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire; Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers; and many others. Waziyatawin, historian and anti-colonial activist, author of For Indigenous Eyes Only; What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland; and other books.
Download or read book Strike written by Jeremy Brecher and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Brecher’s Strike! narrates the dramatic story of repeated, massive, and sometimes violent revolts by ordinary working people in America. Involving nationwide general strikes, the seizure of vast industrial establishments, nonviolent direct action on a massive scale, and armed battles with artillery and tanks, this exciting hidden history is told from the point of view of the rank-and-file workers who lived it. Encompassing the repeated repression of workers’ rebellions by company-sponsored violence, local police, state militias, and the U.S. Army and National Guard, it reveals a dimension of American history rarely found in the usual high school or college history course. Since its original publication in 1972, no book has done as much as Strike! to bring U.S. labor history to a wide audience. Now this fiftieth anniversary edition brings the story up to date with chapters covering the “mini-revolts of the twenty-first century,” including Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for Fifteen. The new edition contains over a hundred pages of new materials and concludes by examining a wide range of current struggles, ranging from #BlackLivesMatter, to the great wave of teachers’ strikes “for the soul of public education,” to the global “Student Strike for Climate” that may be harbingers of mass strikes to come.
Download or read book Blood on the Tracks written by Willson, S. Brian and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We are not worth more, they are not worth less.” This is the mantra of S. Brian Willson and the theme that runs throughout his compelling psycho-historical memoir. Willson’s story begins in small-town, rural America, where he grew up as a “Commie-hating, baseball-loving Baptist,” moves through life-changing experiences in Viet Nam, Nicaragua and elsewhere, and culminates with his commitment to a localized, sustainable lifestyle. In telling his story, Willson provides numerous examples of the types of personal, risk-taking, nonviolent actions he and others have taken in attempts to educate and effect political change: tax refusal—which requires simplification of one’s lifestyle; fasting—done publicly in strategic political and/or therapeutic spiritual contexts; and obstruction tactics—strategically placing one’s body in the way of “business as usual.” It was such actions that thrust Brian Willson into the public eye in the mid-’80s, first as a participant in a high-profile, water-only “Veterans Fast for Life” against the Contra war being waged by his government in Nicaragua. Then, on a fateful day in September 1987, the world watched in horror as Willson was run over by a U.S. government munitions train during a nonviolent blocking action in which he expected to be removed from the tracks and arrested. Losing his legs only strengthened Willson’s identity with millions of unnamed victims of U.S. policy around the world. He provides details of his travels to countries in Latin America and the Middle East and bears witness to the harm done to poor people as well as to the environment by the steamroller of U.S. imperialism. These heart-rending accounts are offered side by side with inspirational stories of nonviolent struggle and the survival of resilient communities Willson’s expanding consciousness also uncovers injustices within his own country, including insights gained through his study and service within the U.S. criminal justice system and personal experiences addressing racial injustices. He discusses coming to terms with his identity as a Viet Nam veteran and the subsequent service he provides to others as director of a veterans outreach center in New England. He draws much inspiration from friends he encounters along the way as he finds himself continually drawn to the path leading to a simpler life that seeks to “do no harm.&rdquo Throughout his personal journey Willson struggles with the question, “Why was it so easy for me, a ’good’ man, to follow orders to travel 9,000 miles from home to participate in killing people who clearly were not a threat to me or any of my fellow citizens?” He eventually comes to the realization that the “American Way of Life” is AWOL from humanity, and that the only way to recover our humanity is by changing our consciousness, one individual at a time, while striving for collective cultural changes toward “less and local.” Thus, Willson offers up his personal story as a metaphorical map for anyone who feels the need to be liberated from the American Way of Life—a guidebook for anyone called by conscience to question continued obedience to vertical power structures while longing to reconnect with the human archetypes of cooperation, equity, mutual respect and empathy.
Download or read book The Iron and Machinery World written by and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Steel written by Dale Richard Perelman and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively portrait of the “Steel City” and its millionaires and workers during the late nineteenth century. Steel portrays the growth of iron and steel in smoke-filled Pittsburgh during America’s industrial age, and what it meant for the people who lived there. This history shares the fast-paced saga of millionaire barons Andrew Carnegie, Ben Franklin Jones, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Phipps, and Charles Schwab, who often plotted and schemed against each other—as well as the story of the underpaid and undervalued immigrant workforce whose desire to unionize united their bosses against them. Here, author Dale Richard Perelman recounts this dramatic struggle and the bloody battles it spawned throughout Western Pennsylvania’s plants, mines, and railroad yards.
