One of the famous, albeit not the most important of the old-time political bosses, was George Washington Plunkitt. Although he was well known in New York City political circles in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, his enduring fame came from a very short book with a very long subtitle: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics, Delivered by Ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Philosopher, from his Rostrum--the New York County Courthouse Bootblack Stand. Journalist William Riordan listened to Plunkitt's talks and published them as interviews in various local newspapers. In 1905, he published them in a book, which became a classic on American urban politics, one still widely read today. Amidst political cynicism, Plunkitt also preached the virtues of hard work, sobriety, and even (as in this talk on "honest graft") honesty.

The brutal southern Colorado coal strike reached its nadir on Easter night, 1914, with the horrendous deaths by fire of three women and eleven children at the hands of the Colorado state militia. Mary Thomas, whose husband was on strike, was interviewed at age eighty eight by historian Sherna Gluck in 1974 for the Feminist History Research Project. Thomas vividly recalled the horror of the infamous Ludlow Massacre, described her efforts to save the lives of women and children by hiding them in a dry well, and her jailing in the aftermath the massacre. She was the only woman strike supporter to be jailed during the strike.

Libraries in the late 19th century were seen by their founders as instruments of social and cultural uplift, meant to raise the working class out their ignorance and teach them how to be middle class. But men like Oscar Ameringer, who immigrated to the United States from Germany when he was 15 and later became a socialist organizer, humorist, and editor, took away different lessons. In this selection from his 1940 autobiography, Ameringer described his discovery of American history books, translated into German, at the local public library.

Thousands of free and escaped African Americans played significant roles in the antebellum abolitionist movement. Henry Bibb was born into slavery in Kentucky in 1815. His autobiography recounted his sufferings, escapes, recapture, and efforts to free his family. Upon his final escape he became active in politics. He was a founder of the Liberty Party in 1840 in Michigan and the Free Soil Party in 1848. While attending a political convention, he contacted his former master in Kentucky and began a correspondence, excerpted here. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law by Congress in 1850, Bibb fled to Canada and helped form the Refugee's Home colony for escaped slaves.

During World War I, government at all levels subjected the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical labor union, to repression in the name of wartime security. IWW organizers were repeatedly arrested, and strikers were beaten or shot by police and hired thugs. In September, 1917, federal agents raided every IWW office in the country, arresting some 300 leaders on charges of espionage and sedition. Within six months, two thousand IWW members, known as Wobblies, were in jail and awaiting trial. Most were eventually convicted of violating wartime statutes and sentenced to long prison terms. The organization never recovered from these wartime setbacks. This 1917 cartoon from the New York Globe newspaper uses the acronym IWW" in place of the features of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany

The Women's Emergency Brigade, which Genora Johnson Dollinger helped organize, saved the 1936 sit down strike at Flint, Michigan more than once. In this 1976 interview with Sherna Gluck, Dollinger recalls the famous "Battle of the Running Bulls" when police--bulls--tried to regain control of the GM plant by force. Dollinger and the other organizers of the Women's Emergency Brigade faced constant sexist attitudes in their efforts to win the strike, even as they demonstrated their determination to put their bodies and their families' well-being on the line. Sometimes this sexism took the form of an unwillingness to allow women to speak, sometimes it took gentler forms: Dollinger recalls how, in the heat of battle, a passing striker tipped his hat to her. In a key moment, Dollinger took a loudspeaker and persuaded women in the crowd to join the group in front of the plant. Overwhelmed, and afraid to shoot at women, the police abandoned their assault.

We generally think of Puerto Rican migration to the U.S. mainland as largely a post-World War II phenomenon, since more than 800,000 Puerto Ricans came to the United States between 1940 and 1969. But immigration actually started much earlier in the century; between 1915 and 1930 more than 50,000 Puerto Rican migrants headed for the United States--especially New York City. The new immigrants faced a mixed reception, particularly from immigrants from other countries. In this interview for the radio program "Nosotros Trabajamos en la Costura"(We Work in the Garment Industry), garment worker Luisa Lopez told how she faced discrimination from European immigrant workers when she went to work in garment factories in the 1920s. Yet sometimes alliances crossed ethnic lines: Lopez found an ally in an Italian-American socialist.

Employers had many ways to retaliate against their workers who tried to organize, ranging from allies in state and local police forces to detective agencies that used secret operatives to disrupt unions and supplied thugs to protect strikebreakers during strikes. But the simplest expedient available was to simply fire employees who were perceived as potential troublemakers. In 1914, a former department store worker named Sylvia Schulman testified before the U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations. In the excerpt included here she described how she was fired simply for joining the retail clerk's union.

In colonial America, apprenticeship was the usual means by which young men entered a trade and master craftsmen obtained the labor necessary to staff their workshops. A young man's guardian signed an indenture (contract) for a period of time and the apprentice in turn was to receive food, lodging, and knowledge of "the mysteries of the trade," or traditional craft practices. For young John Fitch of Connecticut in the 1760s, anxious "to learn a trade" and "subsist myself in a genteel way when I came for myself," that exchange was no simple matter. The Cheney brothers, Connecticut clockmakers who were innovated in making moving wooden clocks that were far cheaper than the usual brass ones, were not eager to share either their dinner or their knowledge of clockmaking with Fitch. He found himself caught between his father's and his master's patriarchal expectations of receiving his labor, while he had to worry about how he would support himself when he came of age.

Urban artisans experienced dramatic changes in the second quarter of the 19th century. New York and other cities were destinations of choice for many rural mechanics as well as those coming from overseas. Upon arrival they found workshops in great flux as traditional social relations among master, journeyman, and apprentice were being transformed into an employer-employee relationship. In some crafts, such as cabinetmaking, change came more slowly because of the complexities of fashioning large case furniture. In other trades, such as tailoring, tiny sweatshops started to dot the city streets. A new working class was coming into being, often with a variety of religions and backgrounds, and they organized to contest these and other changes in work conditions and compensation. This anonymous account from a British periodical in 1845 related the experience of a British cabinetmaker in New York in the 1830s; he eventually returned home.

While most working-class autobiographers followed the example of Benjamin Franklin and portrayed the "industrious apprentice," William Otter showed another side of plebian life. Otter took his readers into the world of heavy drinking and nativist violence of antebellum urban life. Cities increasingly became unruly places to govern in the decades before the Civil War with their rapid population growth and jostling of immigrant and native born. Competition for jobs and just plain scapegoating led to brawls between native-born, foreign, and African-Americans workers. Otter participated in the urban diversions made possible by the new commercial culture such as boxing, baseball and other sports, or games at local taverns, along with the competitions between rival militia companies and neighborhood street gangs. All of these boisterous activities could turn violent. Otter was born in England and impressed into the British navy. He jumped ship and came to New York in 1831. While apprenticed as a plasterer, he entered a world of masculine culture that he colorfully displayed in his History of My Own Times (1835).

Jack O'Dell was one of many young black servicemen who returned from World War II determined to change conditions for African Americans at home. Along with veterans, African Americans who had participated in wartime industries and union organizing, and who had experienced improvements in pay and education, became more assertive in their demands for equality. As a member of the National Maritime Union, O'Dell participated in union organizing and challenging racial discrimination. Later, he used his job as an insurance agent to speak with African Americans in their homes, encouraging them to register to vote. These activities formed a basis for his participation in the Civil Rights Movement, during which he directed the New York office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, was demonized by labor for his role in the violent Homestead strike in 1892 in which a pitched battle was fought between strikers and company-hired Pinkerton detectives. Known for his uncompromising and cruel tactics, Frick became an obvious target for labor activists looking to make a statement during the protracted strike. In this excerpt from her autobiography, Living my Life, radical Emma Goldman described how fellow radical Alexander Berkman decided to murder Frick during the Homestead strike.

Religion figured prominently in the 1928 presidential election when Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic governor of New York, became the first Catholic to run as the candidate of a major political party. Smith, who ran against the Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, tried to downplay the subject of his religion. In his speech accepting the presidential nomination, Smith sought to reassure voters that he would not favor Catholics, "Wets" (supporters of Prohibition), or Easterners if elected president. While his words may have reassured some, his obvious New York accent reinforced the worries--and prejudices--of others.

IWitness includes features for teachers, including guidelines for using Holocaust survivor and witness testimony in education. The guidelines offer practical information and tips about how to integrate video testimony into classroom lessons and projects.   Students have the opportunity to use technology to become more active learners while encountering survivors and other eyewitnesses talking about their experiences before, during and after the Holocaust.

IWitness includes features for teachers, including guidelines for using Holocaust survivor and witness testimony in education. The guidelines offer practical information and tips about how to integrate video testimony into classroom lessons and projects.   Students have the opportunity to use technology to become more active learners while encountering survivors and other eyewitnesses talking about their experiences before, during and after the Holocaust.

Though the Great Steel Strike of 1919 failed in its immediate aims, it left a legacy in the steel regions of the United States that lasted for decades. In 1974 when historian Peter Gotlieb asked former steelworker Joe Rudiak, the son of Polish immigrants, about his participation in unionization struggles in the 1930s, he started by recalling his memories of the 1919 steel strike as a young boy. Here, Rudiak told how his father was blacklisted for acknowledging his support of the union. From such experiences, he explained, unionism got "embedded in you."

In the 1960s, lottery-like contests designed to publicize products through sweepstakes competitions spread rapidly. In the 19th century, every state banned lotteries--defined as competitions in which chances to win prizes were sold÷to protect citizens. In 1868, Congress prohibited the distribution of lottery materials through the mail. The mid-20th century sweepstakes, however, did not require contestants to purchase tickets or products to win prizes and were thus considered legal. In 1966, the number of national sweepstakes exceeded 600 and consumer groups accused them of deceptive practices. An FTC investigation in 1968 into sweepstakes from oil companies and supermarket chains found evidence of deception. In the following excerpts from letters to a 1969 Congressional investigation, citizens urged Congress to take action to regulate sweepstakes. Their efforts failed to produce a bill that passed through Congress, however, and by 1998, the FTC estimated that more than 400 million sweepstakes flooded the mail annually and that consumers lost more than $40 billion each year through sweepstakes and telemarketing scams. In 1999, Congress passed the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act. Among other consumer protections, this Act required sweepstakes materials to clearly state odds of winning, value of prizes, and rules.

Farm households depended heavily on the work of women and children. At first children were assigned simple tasks; later they learned chores that were differentiated according to gender roles. In the 1790s, young unmarried women such as Elizabeth Fuller pursued work in the dairy or in home manufacturing along with their housework and garden tasks. Fuller lived in the central Massachusetts town of Princeton; her diary recorded her health, social activities, and any unusual events in her life. Mostly, she faced a regular round of household tasks such as making cheese or baking pies. She often washed, carded, and spun wool, since her most significant labor was the household textile production that provided most farm families with their clothing.