lesson
Labor Matters
Draw on your students' prior knowledge to help them understand the importance of the labor movement.
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lesson
Looking at Labor
In this lesson, students will examine the many kinds of work that people do, and discuss why certain jobs are better paid and often more respected than others. The class will then discuss and decide if such assessments are valid.
lesson
Mexican American Labor in the U.S.
Christine Sleeter and Carl Grant wrote this lesson to encourage students to explore policies and attitudes about Mexican and Mexican American laborers in the U.S. and develop informed personal perspectives of the United States-Mexico border and undocumented Mexican immigrants.
lesson
Understanding Past and Present Labor Injustice through Music
Period songs give students an understanding of early 19th century labor conditions
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Informational
Declaration of Dependence
As a means to reduce and regulate child labor in the United States, the National Child Labor Committee composed a declaration, citing the current state of child labor and three resolutions to the situation.
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Informational
An Abolition Traitor
A Democratic laborer comments on the problem of abolitionism in the North as well as the South, claiming that the emancipation of enslaved people will result in the damaging of white labor rights and opportunities.
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Informational
The Importation of Negroes into Massachusetts
In this newspaper article, the author made an argument against the importation of enslaved Africans and in favor of the importation of European servants, using race to distinguish the differences between labor.
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Informational
Commonwealth Club Address
Cesar Chavez delivered this speech on November 9, 1984. Chavez was a high-profile leader of the United Farm Workers and remains an inspiring figure in the larger labor movement.
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Visual
Flint Sit-Down Strike
Between December 1936 and February 1937, auto industry laborers in Flint, Mich., stopped working and occupied the GM factories that employed them until their right to unionize was recognized.
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Visual
Forced to Work
These images show enslaved people laboring in fields in Georgia and South Carolina.