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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/Petition
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/Petition
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/Petition
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/Petition
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

As millions of men lost their jobs during the Great Depression, many began to argue that women (particularly married women) should not be occupying the scarce jobs that remained. When women could find jobs, employers routinely paid them less than men, even for the same work. Women were also more likely to be employed irregularly, which further…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1933

When World War II ended, Ford Motor Company's Highland Park plant, like industrial manufacturers across the country, laid off thousands of women workers and replaced them with inexperienced men. In Highland Park, women members of the United Auto Workers Local 400 organized active protests against the policy, including this picket by 150 women…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1945

This photograph, taken during a labor parade in New York City in 1909, shows two young women wearing banners that read "Abolish Child Slavery!" in English and Yiddish. Jewish immigrants were especially active in many labor causes at the turn of the century, including the fight against child labor.

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1909

In this oral history conducted by historian Joan Morrison, Pauline Newman told of getting a job at the Triangle Company as a child, soon after arriving in the United States from Lithuania in 1901. Newman described her life as an immigrant and factory worker. Like many other young immigrant workers, she chafed at the strict regulations imposed by…

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Item Type: Oral History
Date: Circa 1980

The New York Age was an African-American newspaper founded by Timothy Thomas Fortune, a civil rights leader and journalist. This excerpt from an editorial on the 1909 New York City shirtwaist maker's strike defends the paper's decision to run advertisements from the shirtwaist manufacturers seeking young African-American women to take the places of…

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Item Type: Newspaper/Magazine
Date: 1910