Labor Day

The library will be closing at 6pm, Sunday September 2, and remain closed for Labor Day on Monday, September 3.

What's Labor Day all about?

According to the US Department of Labor, Labor Day is “a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

For more on the history of the holiday, see the US Department of Labor's History of Labor Day page.

The Library of Congress has an informative blog post, In Celebration of American Labor.

Our library also has quite a few books on the American Labor Movement that you should check out!

These include:

Women and the American Labor Movement by Philip Sheldon Foner

Documents and contemporary writings underlie a study of women workers' fight to gain union recognition, win parity with male workers, and organize the steel mills, Southern textile mills, and California grape and lettuce pickers.

Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement by William Fobath

In a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, William Forbath challenges this notion of American "individualism." In fact, he argues, the nineteenth-century American labor movement was much like Europe's labor movements in its social and political outlook, but in the decades around the turn of the century, the prevailing attitude of American trade unionists changed. Forbath shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial to reshaping labor's outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.

Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement by Rick Fantasia

This concise overview of the labor movement in the United States focuses on why American workers have failed to develop the powerful unions that exist in other industrialized countries. Packed with valuable analysis and information, Hard Work explores historical perspectives, examines social and political policies, and brings us inside today's unions, providing an excellent introduction to labor in America.