Labor History Today

This episode of Labor History Today features historian Marcella Bencivenni on Arturo Giovannitti—Italian immigrant, poet, socialist, and labor organizer—whose role in the 1912 Lawrence textile strike made him a target of state repression and a powerful voice of labor resistance. Arrested for his words, Giovannitti turned imprisonment into poetry that helped define an era of immigrant-led radical organizing. The episode explores free speech struggles, anti-immigrant repression, and labor solidarity—lessons from more than a century ago that still resonate in 2026 America. We close with the Labor Song of the Month, featuring “Joe Hill’s Ashes,” performed by Otis Gibbs. Today’s show comes to us from the always fabulous Heartland Labor Forum on KKFI in Kansas City.

This week on Labor History Today, we explore how the 1892 Homestead Strike continues to live on—not just in books and archives, but in film, music, and living memory.

We begin with labor scholar and cultural critic Kathleen Newman, who takes us inside Ting Tong Chang’s The Hidden Shift, a two-screen film installation at Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory. Inspired by the Homestead Strike, the piece layers a fictionalized labor drama with behind-the-scenes footage of museum workers making the work itself—blurring the lines between labor and culture, past and present.

Kathleen reflects on Homestead as both a proud moment in worker history and a shameful chapter in corporate history, and connects the strike’s legacy to today’s service-sector workers—from museum staff to baristas—whose labor too often goes unseen.

We close with music that has carried the story for more than a century. “Homestead Strike Song” turns the events of 1892 into a communal act of remembrance. In this 1980 recording, Pete Seeger sings the song, invites a singalong, and shares the story of how the song survived—passed down in halls and bars long after the strike itself was crushed.

Together, these segments remind us that labor history isn’t just remembered—it’s made, performed, and sung.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory

This week on Labor History Today, Simon Sapper talks with historian Martin Wright, co-author of Made by Labour: A Material and Visual History of British Labor, 1780–1924. The book traces the rise of the world’s first modern labor movement through banners, boxes, coins, tools, and images created by working people during the Industrial Revolution and beyond—right up to the moment labor stood on the brink of political power in the 1920s.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory

This week on Labor History Today, we move from repression to resistance—and from history to possibility.

We begin with Labor History in Two and the 1917 trial of labor leader Tom Mooney, a stark reminder of how the justice system has been used to silence working-class dissent.
Then we turn to the present with a report from the Working Class History podcast, bringing us to the 2025 Working Class Literature Festival at the occupied former GKN factory outside Florence, Italy—where workers are fighting not only to save their jobs, but to transform their workplace into a cooperative and tell their own stories.

We close with another Labor History in Two—the 2006 Sago Mine disaster—underscoring the deadly consequences of corporate negligence and regulatory failure.

History doesn’t just explain the world we’re in. It helps us imagine the one we’re trying to build.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory

On this week’s Labor History Today: From Camp Solidarity in Matewan, West Virginia—the heart of the legendary Mine Wars—UMWA President Cecil Roberts reflects on the long struggle of coal miners to claim America’s promise that “this land belongs to all of us.” On the eve of his retirement, Roberts’ words connect today’s fights for justice with a century of labor history rooted in the hollers of Appalachia. (Originally broadcast 9/21/25; updated with today’s Labor History in 2:00)

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory