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"The Strike"
Painter and lithographer Robert Koehler emigrated to the U.S. from Germany with his parents—a skilled machinist and a sewing teacher—when he was four years old. Koehler painted The Strike in 1886 while living in Munich, and drew on [...]
A Boston Union Urges Immigration Restriction
In 1896 Congress passed a bill which would require all immigrants to be able to read at least 40 words in any language in order to enter the country. The bill was supported by the Immigration Restriction League. They worried that the increasing [...]
A Boston Union Urges Immigration Restriction (with text supports)
In 1896 Congress passed a bill which would require all immigrants to be able to read at least 40 words in any language in order to enter the country. The bill was supported by the Immigration Restriction League. They worried that the increasing [...]
Background Essay on Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl
This essay explains the significance of young female immigrants in the labor upheavals that helped define the Progressive Era.
A Montana Miner's Union Boycotts Asian-Owned Businesses
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 [...]
An Ybor City Resident Describes Work in the Cigar Factories
The family of Cesar Marcos Medina moved from Cuba to Ybor City in Tampa, Florida in 1903. In this interview, Medina details the experiences of his father, who worked as a lector (reader) in the city's cigar factories. Medina also describes the [...]
Mexican and Japanese Laborers Form a Union
In 1903, Mexican and Japanese farmworkers in Oxnard, California joined together to resist a wage cut by their employers. When they requested that their union be allowed to join the American Federation of Labor, President Samuel Gompers told the [...]
A Labor Leader Rails Against Chinese Immigration (1878)
In this "Workingmen's Address," published in 1878, Dennis Kearney of the Workingman's Party of California appealed to racist arguments against Chinese immigrants. After excoriating the fraud, corruption, and monopolization of land by the "moneyed [...]
A Mill Worker Testifies about Unemployment (1883)
On October 18, 1883, mill worker Thomas O’Donnell testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor about the hardships of unemployment and working-class issues. O'Donnell had immigrated from England in the 1870s. At the time of [...]
Lenora M. Barry Describes Women's Working Conditions in New Jersey (1887)
Lenora M. Barry was the national women’s organizer for the Knights of Labor in the late nineteenth century. The Knights of Labor aimed to improve the lives and health of laborers by encouraging them to organize unions and other groups to fight for [...]