"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.
“It Didn’t Start with Amazon: A Conversation About the History of Organized Labor in the South”
The Battle of Virden
Sharecroppers’ struggles for rights and power
Feathers and Pennies - the 1888 Matchgirls and us
Trumka: “Art is why they remember our struggles”
Live from The Battle of Blair Mountain!
The Battle of Blair Mountain; Remembering Ed Asner
Marching on Washington: civil rights to voting rights
Sacco and Vanzetti; Midnight in Vehicle City
Trumka on the future of American labor (archive show)
Remembering Rich Trumka (1949-2021)
Keokuk before the strike
Indigenous Longshoremen & the I.W.W.
Houston, We Have a Labor Dispute
Dramatizing The Murals
2020/2021 Joe Hill award-winners
The Memphis Fire Fighter Strike of 1978
Marvel Cooke, a Journalist for Working People
LHT Archives: Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth
LHT Archives: Debs on capitalism; Dudzic on the Labor Party
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