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Recursion

(56,582 posts) Thu Dec 4, 2014, 01:44 AM Dec 2014

Just curious: what did you learn about US labor history in high school?

I've been unpacking old boxes from our move (yes I know we've been here a year and a half STFU) and I came across my old high school US history notebook, and was curious what I wrote down in it. (This is my attempt at remembering my high school shorthand, which I hopefully can distinguish from my high school doodles and love poems written to the girl next to me, and probably colored by what I've learned since then, but it's at least indicative of the topics covered.)

Here's what I wrote down under the rubric of "labor" (I took notes under topical headings even though the course was presented chronologically... I'm not very normal, in a lot of ways...):

1. Shay's rebellion was against evictions from small farms
2. Whitney and McCormick made slavery profitable by making agricultural products easily processed
3. Samuel Gompers founded the AFL but forbade strikes during wartime
4. John Lewis founded the CIO which was the first racially integrated industrial union
5. The rivalry between the AFL and CIO reflected the division between the 19th- and 20th-century labor movements
6. The AFL-CIO merger was essentially on the CIO's terms
7. The Wobblies were the only large 20th-century American labor movement that was not explicitly anti-communist
8. Something I can't decipher about the Wobbly/American Legion battle (having since joined the Legion I'm now really curious both what I was taught about that and what I thought about it at the time, though I can't remember)
9. Haymarket (I'm pretty sure I already knew a lot about that, because I just wrote "Haymarket" with the symbol that reminded me it would be on the test)
10. The ascendancy of the Teamsters represents the increasing importance of the service sector in the American economy (looking back, that's a pretty sophisticated point to teach to high schoolers...)
11. Hoffa's tenure in the Teamsters brought to light criminal/corrupt elements in portions of the labor movement

And, our textbook cut off in 1979 so that's where we stopped.

Looking back, I'm actually kind of impressed that we got that much -- I have the impression kids don't learn about Gompers today, for instance.

Anybody else remember what they learned in high school US history about labor?

8 replies

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Just curious: what did you learn about US labor history in high school? (Original Post) Recursion Dec 2014 OP

Little or nothing. SheilaT Dec 2014 #1

same here nt steve2470 Dec 2014 #4

Learned about Eugene Debs LuvNewcastle Dec 2014 #2

I know I learned about Debs but I think I put that under politics Recursion Dec 2014 #3

I was with the stoners and heads BubbaFett Dec 2014 #5

Shamefully, shamefully little Lee-Lee Dec 2014 #6

1966-67 senior year, we learned pretty darn much about the Labor Movement! WinkyDink Dec 2014 #7

Early 20th century "Bomb-Throwing Anarchists" and 30s sit-down strikers. Odin2005 Dec 2014 #8

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)

1. Little or nothing.

Reply to Recursion (Original post)

Thu Dec 4, 2014, 04:46 AM

Dec 2014

I graduated high school in 1965, and we go the standard stuff that did not include labor strife or union organization.

Some years later I discovered that the college I was attending (George Mason University) had bound issues of old Life Magazines. I spent several years reading them when I should have been studying, and it was the single most informative thing I have ever done. I eventually (continuing at the University of Minnesota) read from the first issue in November, 1936, to the end of March, 1945. It is clear that the war in Europe is almost over, and it is equally clear that we will be fighting for at least another year in Japan, and I shudder to think what the death and destruction will be when we invade the Home Islands. Okay, so I actually know how the war ended, but I also can put myself directly back into that time.

Anyway, in the late 1930's I read about the labor strikes, particularly those in Detroit, Michigan. I think Life may have whitewashed the actual violence to an extent. This is a part of our history I know little about, basically only what I read in those old Life Magazines or what I've picked up casually since then.

What I do know is that there were incredibly strong-willed people who stood up to management, who gave up their lives so that we could have basic benefits such as the 8 hour day, weekends, holidays, paid time and a half. I am greatly bothered that these days workers just give in to management demands to work off the clock, to give up Thanksgiving, to work without a lot of basic protections. What we need is a strong revitalization of that old union movement.

steve2470

(37,457 posts)

4. same here nt

Reply to SheilaT (Reply #1)

Thu Dec 4, 2014, 07:17 AM

Dec 2014

LuvNewcastle

(16,847 posts)

2. Learned about Eugene Debs

Reply to Recursion (Original post)

Thu Dec 4, 2014, 07:07 AM

Dec 2014

and the Wobblies and a little about the Haymarket Riot. All of that was from one teacher in my junior year. If she hadn't been a liberal, I wouldn't have even learned that much. Class of 1987