Labor history online

On strike
Originally uploaded by louder

Something cool from the US Department of Labor: the Wirtz Labor Digital Library. A few titles that popped up on a casual browse:

If Your Baby Must Travel In Wartime - a guide for mothers traveling (mostly by train) during World War II. Illustrations by the brilliant Gluyas Williams make it more interesting.

A History of Organized Felony and Folly: The Record of Union Labor in Crime and Economics. A 1923 guide by the Wall Street Journal of all the crimes of organized labor. Interestingly enough the only source in the digital library that mentions Clarence Darrow.

Boy Power - The newspaper of the U.S. Boys Working Reserve, which I had never heard of, but was apparently a government program during WWI to steer youngsters into useful occupations.

The Potter and Lead Poisoning - A nineteenth century Biritsh government document about an industrial hazard.

There are 18 documents about black lung. None about Wobblies., but "IWW" brings up three editions of Important events in US Labor History.