"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.
“The waterfront is my life”
Debs’ radio station
The union archive that almost didn’t make it
Coit Tower’s New Deal Murals
Who Killed Frank Little?
Life and Times of a Black Wobbly
The Port Chicago Mutiny (Encore)
The Disney Revolt
Under The Iron Heel
MoJo’s March of the Mill Children; Remembering Harry Belafonte
The 1943 RJ Reynolds Strike
Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot!
Democracy Under Siege
A white-collar strike
Detroit’s Walk to Freedom
Trumka on the power of labor arts
The Memorial Day Massacre
Mackay, Wurf, library workers, Matewan and the first baseball strike (Encore)
Labor Journalism, Farmworkers, and Reynolds Tobacco
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