Anti-Unionism is alive and...cheesy.

Oy. Some more classic anti-union propaganda from Target, via Gawker.

Watch it here.

Ouch, Target, you had me lulled into a comfy state of tampon-buying consumer satisfaction. 

Patronizing? Misleading? Shameless? Cheesy? False interpretations of labor history? Oh no they didn't! (Apparently, thanks to Lewis Hine and unions in the 1930's, we don't need unions anymore.) It's capitalism laid bare!

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: March 25, 1911-2011

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers in New York City were killed in a workplace fire. Infamously, management had locked the factory's exit doors. A wave of safety reform legislation and memorialization followed. For a moment, the dangerous realities that faced some of the nation's most marginalized industrial workers -- young, female, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe -- gripped the nation's attention.

Recently brought to my attention: the New York Times has assembled extraordinary coverage of the many facets of the fire: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire/?ref=nyregion

Some particular highlights of museum-think interest:
Triangle Fire: Clinging to Scraps of Memories
Triangle Fire: A Frontier in Photojournalism (interactive)
Garment Work in New York 100 Years After the Triangle Fire (video)
In a Tragedy, a Mission to Remember
Remembering the Triangle Fire, 100 Years Later

And, last but not least, from President Obama's resolution marking today's 100th anniversary:
Despite the enormous progress made since the Triangle factory fire, we are still fighting to provide adequate working conditions for all women and men on the job, ensure no person within our borders is exploited for their labor, and uphold collective bargaining as a tool to give workers a seat at the tables of power...As we mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, let us resolve to renew the urgency that tragedy inspired and recommit to our shared responsibility to provide a safe environment for all American workers.

NPR: Coal Reignites A Mighty Battle Of Labor History

From All Things Considered: Coal Reignites A Mighty Battle Of Labor History

Great story about the 1921 "battle of Blair Mountain," in West Virginia, and current controversy over adding it to the National Register of Historic Places. Preserve the space of a landmark event in US labor and mining history, or open the site to mountaintop removal mining? This story is an unusually direct glimpse into the tensions that often arise between preservation, economic realities, and memory in dealing with local labor heritage and industrial history.

A sign commemorating the battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County, W.Va. NPR.

Key points:

King believes this is hallowed ground, like Gettysburg or the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., places where America's history was forever changed. But he's had a hard time making that case to the folks in Logan County — a place where every fourth person is out of work.

There are only about 16,000 miners in West Virginia today. Mountaintop removal doesn't require as much manpower as underground mining. These are coveted jobs; they pay well. So for the most part, miners are more interested in seeing the economy grow than preserving what they see as just another mountain.

"This is a political fight, this is a social fight, this is a fight about our history, our heritage, our culture," Simmons says. "It's a fight about what kind of society West Virginia is going to be going forward and what has been in its past."

Sounds to me like labor heritage interpretation at its best, and most relevant.

UPDATE (ish): The plot thickens?  http://www.sierraclub.org/environmentallaw/lawsuits/0312.aspx

Steampunk + Industrial History Museums =...Duh?!

Ok, article from Boston.com like a week ago: Citywide steampunk festival pays homage to Waltham's history

Did you know that International Steampunk City is the "secret identity" of Waltham, MA? Me neither! Anyway, May 6-8 the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation -- and the entire city of Waltham, apparently -- will be hosting a huge steampunk event.

Talk about getting experimental with industrial history! Awesome opportunity to delve into the aethetics of Victorian-era industry in new and imaginative ways, or catering to a very specialized subculture? Either way it seems like a pretty natural match. I'm super curious to see how this plays out for the CRMII, and psyched to venture down there in May...

Salon: What Wisconsin's governor is really threatening

Today, in the ongoing and infuriating saga of Gov. Scott Walker and his assault on public employees/collective bargaining rights...an enlightening article on the history of the labor movement and the National Guard: What Wisconsin's Governor is Really Threatening

"This would be the first time in nearly 80 years that the National Guard would be used to break a strike by Wisconsin workers, and the first time in over 40 years that the National Guard would be used against public workers anywhere in the country. The last time was the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, just before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination."

LA Times: House Republicans unveil plan to end federal arts and humanities agencies and aid to public broadcasting

House Republicans unveil plan to end federal arts and humanities agencies and aid to public broadcasting

Trying to take down the NEA, NEH, and CPB? Seriously bleak. Viva la culture wars.

Love.

Devastation from Above

Check it out: striking, gorgeous, horrifying aerial photographs from J. Henry Fair documenting contemporary industrial impact on the landscape. I could see these as a temporary exhibit in just about any good industrial history museum, looking at the ongoing environmental effects of industrialization in a unique way.

Worth looking through the whole set: Devastation from Above

UPDATE: The New York Times has more today. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/arts/design/14earth.html

Bauxite Waste, J. Henry Fair.

“If they want to strike, they should be fired.”

Call out the Pinkerton guards! The new governor John Kasich of Ohio on public employees, sounding like an incredulous early 20 century steel baron: "If they want to strike, they should be fired,” Mr. Kasich said in a speech. “They’ve got good jobs, they’ve got high pay, they get good benefits, a great retirement. What are they striking for?”

Saw this disheartening (to me) item in the New York Times this morning: Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions. Later found myself talking to a coworker about the difficulties of interpreting the history of organized labor. The incredible decline in union representation over the last half-century and an apparently increasing, politicized (although not historically unprecedented) suspicion of organized labor can make both radical and mainstream labor movements of the past 100 years seem too irrelevant, controversial, anomalous, or difficult to fully integrate into many museums' narratives of American industry.

As the modern structure of work and industry undergoes immense global shifts, maybe the history of organized labor's struggles, values, failures, and achievements is more important than ever. What does the past look like, and why is the present different? A couple organizations that are keeping real conversations alive about the past, present, and future of organized labor in the US:

Tamiment Labor Library at New York University
Labor Heritage Foundation
1912 Lawrence Textile Strike Centennial

Oh, and one more low point from the article -- the new governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker: "We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots."

That's a ridiculously misleading dichotomy. Divide and conquer. The idea that public employees are the "haves" of our corporate society is, in my estimation, ludicrous.

Views of Lawrence

Spent an awesome afternoon in Lawrence, Mass. yesterday. Lawrence is one of the most dramatic post-industrial landscapes I have ever seen, and home to the amazing Lawrence History Center. 100 years ago, Lawrence was the wool textile capital of the world and home to thousands of immigrant families trying to grab an incredibly elusive, often cruel piece of the (not-yet-coined) "American Dream" in the city's cavernous mills.

The mills -- which formed the basis for the city's entire economy -- began shutting down mid-century. Families continued coming from all around the world, particularly from Latin America in the past half-century, putting down new roots and making a life in this old city.

Today, Lawrence is still struggling tremendously with the economically devastating loss of its manufacturing sector. At the same time, there is incredible resiliance, community energy, and life among the often empty (and insanely dramatic) old brick factories. Every time I visit, I'm totally inspired by the History Center. Archive, community center, museum, gathering place, anchor -- this is one tiny non-profit with a big and growing reach in Lawrence. In a city that has seen more than its share of community division and economic dislocation, the Lawrence History Center uses history as a tool to connect people across languages, cultures, and experiences. I urge you to check them out.

Now, some pictures of old industrial stuff: