This collection brings together the labor and cultural studies of the author over the past 20 years, during which time the fields of social history, women's history, ethnic studies, public history, and oral history have all been transformed. The essays, some rewritten or newly available and the rest original to this volume, offer important examples of historical analysis, comment on changing scholarly perceptions, and the public uses of history. By drawing upon his own research in popular culture, Yiddish periodicals, interracial unionism, oral history and a variety of other sources, the author demonstrates how the field of labor specialists has become the domain of social historians exploring a rich American past.

Focusing on the operation and influence of the Knights of Labor—the leading labor organization of the nineteenth century—Workingmen's Democracy explores the dreams, achievements, and failures of a movement that sought to renew the democratic potential of American institutions. Runner-up in both the John H. Dunning Prize and Albert J. Beveridge Award competitions

Knights Across the Atlantic tells the story of the Knights of Labor, one of the great social movements of American history, in Britain and Ireland.

This collection of original essays offers an inside view of the current state of American unions. Most of the contributors are prominent activists in the AFL-CIO, and their writings assess the state of the movement in the late 1990s.