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Seth
10th October 2011, 05:06
What are some good ones?

I want to get Thunder in the Mountains: the West Virginia Mine War, 1920 - 21 and When Miners March.

Give me some more suggestions.
TheGodlessUtopian
10th October 2011, 05:08
I have heard that "There is Power in a Union" by Phillip Dray is a good,albeit hostile read to Anarchists,on the labor movement.
Lenina Rosenweg
10th October 2011, 05:13
Teamster's Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs, about the 1934 Teamsters strike in Minneapolis, is excellent.It may be possible to get it free online, I'm not sure.

http://www.amazon.com/Teamster-Rebellion-Farrell-Dobbs/dp/087348973X
Os Cangaceiros
10th October 2011, 05:54
"The Fall Of The House Of Labor" is an excellent and very thorough study of American labor history from directly after Reconstruction to 1923. The author (David Montgomery) is a liberal, I believe, but his analysis of working class life at the most microscopic level is extremely well done, definitely check it out. He's a professor of history at Yale and has written several books on the American working class.

Also, "Strike!" by Jeremy Brecher. I think it's kind of poorly/simplistically written, honestly, but a lot of the stories are kinda amazing, and really gives you an idea about how intense the class war was in the USA, complete with massacres and bombings and soldiers and riots, all over a long time period.

And perhaps "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying", about Detroit's LRBW/DRUM movement.
coda
10th October 2011, 06:36
American Labor Struggles1877-1984 by Samuel Yellen
x359594
10th October 2011, 19:25
The old standards are still pretty good: Dynamite! The Story of Class Violence in America by Louis Adamic (1933,) Labor's Untold Story by Boyer and Morais (2nd edition 1965,) Strike! by Jeremy Brecher (2nd edition 1998,) and Philip Foner's multi-volume History of the American Labor Movement (1947-1994.)

There are many good books about specific US labor struggles, histories of particular unions (the IWW, CIO, UAW, etc.), biographies and autobiographies (Labor Radical by Len De Caux is particularly good,) and cultural studies.
NoOneIsIllegal
11th October 2011, 16:32
"Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States" - Sharon Smith


One book I haven't read but have heard is really good is "Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW" by August Meier and Elliot Rudwick