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Social History for Every Classroom

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"The Story of Sadie Frowne, A Brooklyn Sweatshop Girl"

Sadie Frowne's story is in many ways typical of the immigrant worker in New York's Lower East Side.  Her story was originally published the New York Independent, a reform-minded newspaper, and later collected into the 1906 book The Lives of [...]

African-American Laundry Women Go on Strike in Atlanta

In July 1881, African-American laundry women in Atlanta formed the Washing Society and organized a strike to gain higher wages and respect for their labor. Utilizing door-to-door canvassing and with the support of black churches, the Society quickly [...]

A Letter to the Editor Attempts to Explain Crime in Five Points

This letter to the New-York Daily Times, published on June 14, 1854, attempts to explain the high rate of criminality among Irish immigrants in terms of environment rather than temperment. The Irish-surnamed writer argues that the Irish are not [...]

A Chinese Immigrant Tells of Labor in a New Land

Since their arrival in the United States in the 1850s, Chinese immigrants confronted social, political, and economic discrimination. Many Americans believed that the Chinese posed a threat to white workers and should not be eligible for citizenship. [...]

Student Writing from Freedom School Newspapers

These short pieces, written by young people, appeared in newspapers published by Freedom Schools in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964. These Freedom Schools were part of a larger effort that summer, organized by the Student Nonviolent [...]

A Protestant Missionary Describes Sabbath in Five Points

Troubled by evidence of extreme poverty in the nation's industrializing cities, many Protestant reformers set up mission houses in poor, immigrant neighborhoods to minister to the needs of the largely Catholic residents. But a cultural abyss divided [...]

Filipinos Object to "Reconcentration"

During its invasion of the Philippines, the United States ordered Filipinos to be concentrated or restricted in "protected" villages. Anyone not in a village would be considered an enemy insurgent. Although the war was officially declared over in [...]

The President of Union Pacific Praises the Railroads

This excerpt from Sidney Dillon's article "The West and the Railroads," from an 1891 issue of The North American Review, credits the railroad with the growth and positive transformation of the American West. The president of the Union Pacific [...]

The New York Times Predicts a Railroad Strike, 1885

This New York Times article from September 1885 makes reference to the tensions that existed between organized labor and Chinese immigrant workers on the Union Pacific and other railroad lines. According to the article, the Knights of Labor, the [...]

The New York Times Describes Racial Unrest on the Railroads

A New York Times article from 1889 describes another instance of racially-based labor unrest on the railroads. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a group of African-American railroad laborers spontaneously strike to protest the dismissal of a black [...]

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