Labor History Booklist

Wali Jamal Abdullah
The Delany Papers: A Revised Edition of the Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered by Martin R. Delany, Originally Published in 1852
(2020, Wali Jamal Abdullah)

Amy Aronson
Crystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life
(2019, Oxford University Press)

Len Barcousky
Hidden History of Pittsburgh
(2016, The History Press)

Millie Beik
•  The Miners of Windber: The Struggles of New Immigrants for Unionization, 1890s-1930s
(1996, University of Illinois Press)
•  Labor Relations: Major Issues in American History
(2005, Greenwood Press)

Thomas Bell
Out of This Furnace
(1941, Little, Brown & Company; 1976, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Arthur Gordon Burgoyne
Homestead: A Complete History of the Struggle of July, 1892, between the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
(1893, Hawthorne Engraving & Printing; reprinted 1979 as The Homestead Strike of 1892, University of Pittsburgh Press.

Margaret F. Byington
Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town
(1910 Russell Sage Foundation; 1974, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Paola Corso
Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps
(2020, Six Gallery Press)

Karen Mocker Dabson
The Muralist’s Ghost
(2014, BookBaby)

Eric Leif Davin
The Great Strike of 1877:  A Novel
(2018, Lulu.com)

Patricia DeMarco
•  Pathways to Our Sustainable Future:  A Global Perspective from Pittsburgh
(2017, University of Pittsburgh Press)
• 
In the Footsteps of Rachael Carson:  Harnessing Earth’s Healing Power
(2022, Urban Press)

David P. Demarest
The River Ran Red: Homestead 1892
(1992, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Mary Cronk Farrell
Fannie Never Flinched:  One Woman’s Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights
(2016, Abrams Books for Young Readers)

John A. Fitch
The Steel Workers
(1911 Russell Sage Foundation; 2002, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Richard Gazarik
Black Valley:  The Life & Death of Fannie Sellins
(2011, ‎Saint Vincent College)

John Hoerr
And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline and Fall of the American Steel Industry
(1988, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Max King & Louise Lippincott
American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane
(2022, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Lainey Newman & Theda Skocpol
Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working-Class Voters Are Turning Away from the Democratic Party
(2023, Columbia University Press)

Anne E. Lynch
On This Day in Pittsburgh’s Progressive History
(2013, Three Rivers Community Foundation)

Nicole McCandless
Down on James Street
(2021, Hard Ball Press)

Charles McCollester
•  Fighter with a Heart: Writings of Charles Owen Rice, Pittsburgh Labor Priest
(1996, University of Pittsburgh Press)
•  The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio
(2008, Battle of Homestead Foundation)

Charles McCollester & Howard Scott
Labor History Sites in the Pittsburgh Region
(2015, Allegheny County Labor Council)

Andy McPhee
Donora Death Fog:  Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town
(2023, University of Pittsburgh Press)

Peter Oresick
•  Warhol-O-Rama
(2008, Carnegie Mellon University Press)

•  Iconoscope: New and Selected Poems
(2015, University of Pittsburgh Press)
•  Definitions
(1990, West End Press)

Peter Oresick & Nicholas Coles
•  Working Classics:  Poems on Industrial Life
(1990, University of Illinois Press)
•  For a Living: The Poetry of Work
(1995, University of Illinois Press)

Dale Richard Perelman
Steel: The Story of Pittsburgh’s Iron & Steel Industry, 1852–1902
(2016, The History Press)

Ronald W. Schatz
The Labor Board Crew: Remaking Worker-Employer Relations from Pearl Harbor to the Reagan Era
(2022, University of Illinois Press)

William Serrin
Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town
(1992, Crown Publishing)

Ed Simon
An Alternative History of Pittsburgh
(2021, Belt Publishing)

Les Standiford
Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America
(2006, Crown Publishing)

Mike Stout
Homestead Steel Mill, the Final Ten Years: USWA Local 1397 and the Fight for Union Democracy
(2020, ‎PM Press)

Joe Szalanski
Boarding the Westbound:  Journey of a Depression-Era Hobo
(2011, Word Association Publishers)

Mitchell Troutman
The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry, 1925–1942
(2022, PM Press)

Mark Whitaker
Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
(2019, Simon & Schuster)

Gabriel Winant
The Next Shift:  The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America
(2021, Harvard University Press)
Deanna Witkowski
Mary Lou Williams:  Music for the Soul
(2021, Liturgical Press)
Bill Yund
•  Reapers Choice
(2010, Create Space)
•  Paradise, Haunted Seeds & Boiled Cats: Three Tangled Tales of Loves Lost and Found, Mayhem, Betrayal and Murder
(2022, CSS Publishing
•  Blood and Sweat:  Struggles in Pennsylvania,1845-1910
(2023, CSS Publishing)
Skip to content