Reader's Advisory: Celebrating American Workers

Labor Day was first observed on September 5, 1882, in New York City. Organized by the Central Labor Union, it became a federal holiday in 1894. To learn more about labor history and today’s workplace, you might try some of the following books available at the Easton Area Public Library.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911 galvanized pro labor sentiment. In about 15 minutes, 146 people – 123 of them women – died in the worst workplace disaster in New York history until September 11, 2001. Dave Von Drehle’s excellent Triangle: the Fire That Changed America is a moment by moment account of the fire and the manslaughter trial of the factory owners that followed.

Another look at labor history is Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class by Larry Tye. Following Reconstruction George Pullman took advantage of the limited opportunities for freed blacks by hiring them to run the sleeper car service on his railroad. Filled with entertaining and informative details, Tye reports the low wages, long hours, and sometimes humiliating, menial work along with the benefits of steady employment and the recognition of the first black union.

Among the books on today’s world of work are Louis Uchitelle’s The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences and Peter T. Kilborn’s Next Stop Reloville, a look at the lives of mid-level executives whose careers depend on their willingness to move and the social and economic consequences for their families and communities. How Starbucks Saved My Life: a Son of Privilege Learns to Live like Everyone Else recounts Michael Gill’s transition from ad exec to barista (Starbucks had to love this book!). Matthew B. Crawford writes about the virtues of the skilled trades and hands on work in Shop Class as Soul Craft: an Inquiry into the Value of Work. And while not American in its subject, Leslie Chang’s Factory Girls: from Village to City in a Changing China is a fascinating look at work in that country. Chang explores the massive migration of 130 million rural Chinese to the cities in search of employment during the last two decades. Chang follows two teenage girls, even incorporating their diary entries and text messages, through their personal transformations in the new factory cities and also gives us details of her own family’s immigration.