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This poster, from A. Philip Randolph's planned March on Washington in 1941, illustrates several issues central to the march. The threat of a large-scale public protest persuaded President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802, which banned racially motivated employment discrimination in federal government and the defense industry.

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Item Type: Poster/Print
Date: 1941

The Pullman Strike began on May 11, 1894, when Pullman Palace Car Company workers walked off the job in response to severe wage cuts; members of Eugene V. Debs' American Railway Union soon joined in by refusing to work in Pullman cars. U.S. Army troops eventually put down the strike by force, resulting in 13 deaths and hundreds of thousands of…

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Item Type: Poster/Print
Date: Circa 1893

This billboard advertisement, dating from the early 1940s, suggests the common ground shared by the labor and civil rights movements. Created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the more progressive of the country's two main labor federations, the billboard urges support for Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee legislation…

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Item Type: Advertisement
Date: Circa 1941

When World War II ended, the large numbers of women who had taken industrial jobs during the war were forced out. Employers sought not only to give their jobs to returning veterans, but also to reassert the division of labor that had operated before wartime mobilization. While women workers staged few organized protests, the Women's Committee of…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: Circa 1945

In the 19th century, Asian Americans faced widespread hostility. In this 1898 flyer, the labor movement claimed that Asian-American workers "[lowered] standards of living and of morals." Particularly in the West, union organizers agitated for the exclusion of Chinese and Japanese workers, who provided a source of cheap labor in the fields of…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: 1898

The grassroots organization, People for Fair Trade, sought to mobilize a mass turnout to protest the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle, WA. This flyer, "No Globalization Without Representation" was part of their efforts.

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: 1999

In May 1941, as it became clear that the U.S. would probably be entering World War II, black labor leader A. Philip Randolph and other activists founded the March on Washington Movement (MOWM). They called for a mass march on the nation's capital to protest job discrimination in government financed jobs and segregation in the military. On June 24,…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: 1941

These excerpts from a 1902 American Federation of Labor pamphlet argue for a second extension of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The pamphlet, entitled Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion: Meat vs. Rice, alleged that the supposed willingness of Chinese and other Asian workers to accept inferior living conditions and lower wages made it impossible…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: 1902

In the years after World War I, American workers sought to consolidate and expand the gains they had achieved during the war years. In September 1919, some 350,000 steelworkers went on strike, seeking higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions. Steel companies, often with assistance of local governments, responded with violent…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: 1919

The state of Oklahoma suffered greatly during the Depression, causing many families to become migrant workers. In response to the dire conditions in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Tenant Farmers' Union argued for decent living wages for field workers, an extension of a wage-and hour law to include agricultural labor, lower interest rates on loans for…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1939