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Labor History Commons

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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Labor History

Reform And Dependency: Labor, Industry, And The Failure To Reglate American Pharmaceuticals, 1959–1964, Andrew J. Storino Sep 2026

Reform And Dependency: Labor, Industry, And The Failure To Reglate American Pharmaceuticals, 1959–1964, Andrew J. Storino

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In 1959, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver launched the first federal inquiry into high drug prices, in a series of hearings which have been reprised many times over in the decades since. While Kefauver failed to pass substantive reforms, his work garnered popular support, and has received much subsequent attention from historians. Legislative action was not the only response to pharmaceutical profiteering, however, and scholars have not yet explored how unions and civil society groups responded creatively to the issue of high drug prices — by opening not-for-profit pharmacies, bargaining for health insurance, and amassing biomedical knowledge at the grassroots level. …


The Impossibility Of Anti-Capitalist Protests In Liberal Discourse: A Study Of Media Rhetoric During The Piquetero Movement In Argentina, 2003-2007, Grant C. Himes Sep 2026

The Impossibility Of Anti-Capitalist Protests In Liberal Discourse: A Study Of Media Rhetoric During The Piquetero Movement In Argentina, 2003-2007, Grant C. Himes

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the piquetero movement in Argentina expanded the political sphere in Argentina by forming new coalitions of unions, the unemployed, and leftist parties in the midst of an economic crisis. However, media coverage of the protests often flattened the category of protester in a category discrete from that of the public, which more closely resembled the media’s middle class, apolitical audience. Through this rhetorical separation between the piquetero and the “public,” the newspapers Clarín and La Nación focused their discourse on the “violent” tactics of the protests, ignoring their economic demands and the struggle …


Labor And Beet Sugar, A "Modern Commodity" In The United States Between 1890 And 1920, Melanie H. Zelle Jan 2025

Labor And Beet Sugar, A "Modern Commodity" In The United States Between 1890 And 1920, Melanie H. Zelle

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The turn of the twentieth century saw a booming American beet sugar industry. For the first time beet sugar rivaled cane sugar in feeding growing domestic demand. Examined here are numerous factors considered significant in the sudden explosion of an industry which had previously failed to establish itself on the continent, including trade policy, monopolization, and advancements in industrial technology. However, in returning to contemporaneous primary literature on the subject, including grower’s manuals, histories of the plant, and economic analysis, I locate labor as a significant and often overlooked base of growth in the industry. Thus it was through innovations …


À Propos Decolonization: The “Affaire D’Amour” Between The Renault Factory Strikes Of 1947 And French Malagasy Discrimination, Grace E. Wurzer Jul 2024

À Propos Decolonization: The “Affaire D’Amour” Between The Renault Factory Strikes Of 1947 And French Malagasy Discrimination, Grace E. Wurzer

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In 1947, The Monnet Plan was introduced in France to reinvigorate the economy, which was still feeble after World War II. Its high demands of factory workers soon led to strikes, which quickly gained the support of the French Communist Party. Concurrently, the French government was rapidly decolonizing Madagascar. Newly independent Africans found themselves financially strained in the wake of decolonization and were enticed to immigrate to France in the hopes of attaining economic freedom and citizenship in exchange for labor. These laborers, who were employed by the stricken factories, also garnered the support of the PCF, much to the …


Land, Labor, And The Railroad In Industrial Appalachia: How The Baltimore And Ohio Railroad Engineered Space, 1843-1872, Lillian R. K. M. Austin Jul 2024

Land, Labor, And The Railroad In Industrial Appalachia: How The Baltimore And Ohio Railroad Engineered Space, 1843-1872, Lillian R. K. M. Austin

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

During the nineteenth century, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad reshaped the social, political, and physical environment of the mid-Atlantic around the needs of the industrial economy. The creation of industrial space, and the proliferation of communities to populate it, is seen retrospectively as an inevitable consequence of technological innovation, but engaging with contemporary corporate records reveals that this space, like the railroad, was engineered. In order to design a supply chain that would make industrialization economical, the railroad and coal industries engaged in political and social engineering to design the new locales of industrialism, exemplified in the Allegheny Mountains by …


Political Economy Of The Middle East: Historiography And The Making Of An Episteme, Jordan Rothschild Jun 2023

Political Economy Of The Middle East: Historiography And The Making Of An Episteme, Jordan Rothschild

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The Great Divergence accelerated a process of Western European states dominating the majority of the world’s geography and people economically and geopolitically. Given the stakes of this shift and its ramifications for all of the history that followed, and the significant way that the divide continues to shape our world, this phenomenon is subject to considerable debate within the historiography. This paper uses the Great Divergence as a departure point to analyze the different schools of political economic history, from the flawed sociologies of the early 20th century theorists to the World Systems Theorists and beyond. A key aspect of …


Solidarietà Sotto La Terra: Italian American Community Building And Ethnic Strife In The 1913-14 Copper Country Strike, Andrew Js Santamarina Jul 2022

Solidarietà Sotto La Terra: Italian American Community Building And Ethnic Strife In The 1913-14 Copper Country Strike, Andrew Js Santamarina

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The 1913-14 Copper Country Strike was one of the most tragic labor strikes of the twentieth century but remains largely ignored by mainstream historical research. This article analyzes the importance of ethnic strife as a central factor in the strike using the Italian community as a case study. The Italian community alongside the other Eastern and Southern European immigrant communities proved essential for empowering and organizing immigrant laborers to confront capital and reconcile ethnic tensions with Western European immigrant communities during the 1913-14 strike.