"This period of time in the Thirties struck me as a period of great innovation and resilience that women organized around the need to provide certain services. And I see that happening in my community today around the pandemic."
Emily Twarog, author of “Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth Century America.” Her study of how women used institutions built on patriarchy and consumer capitalism to cultivate a political voice resonates strongly today in the midst of both the COVID-19 pandemic and an election year. Joyce McCawley talked with Twarog on the Heartland Labor Forum, the labor radio show airing weekly in Kansas City on KKFI.
Plus: Ben Grosscup with a new version of “We Just Come to Work Here” and Joe Glazer on the Memorial Day Massacre.
Produced by Chris Garlock with editing by Patrick Dixon; to contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.
Links:
“Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth Century America.”
Heartland Labor Forum
"We Just Come to Work Here," by Harry Stamper; new lyrics by Paul McKenna and Ben Grosscup May 2020; performed by Ben Grosscup.
“Despotism on Demand”
Escape on the Pearl; Black Labor Week
Labor Day: no picnic in a pandemic
“Boomer Jones": Vintage labor radio show (LHT podcast extra)
We Do The Work; Working History
Cutting along the Color Line
A travel guide to labor landmarks
“The Flintstones” and class struggle; The Ford Hunger March
Remembering Gene Debs; Waging Peace
No longer newsworthy?
Confederate monuments and the Knights of Labor
Strike!
“Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work”: the Housewives League of Detroit
2020 Great Labor Arts Exchange contest winners!
Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth
SCOTUS bans LGBTQ workplace discrimination; Queer history of the UAW
Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
Labor supports DC Black Lives Matter protests; “Debs In Canton” preview; Revisiting The Battle of Homestead; Voices of exiled Iranian workers
The Minneapolis general strike; “Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property”
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra