Charlie’s Monday Marker
Pittsburgh has undergone immense physical and cultural changes the last few years, but there’s still a bedrock of working-class history that continues to shape our city today. A new video series, Charlie’s Monday Marker lets the viewer pause at familiar spots and take a quick trip back in time.
Hosted by Dr. Charles McCollester and produced by the Battle of Homestead Foundation, Charlie’s Monday Marker are 10-minute videos delving into the fascinating stories behind the more than 60 historic sites listed in Labor History Sites in the Pittsburgh Region, a book authored by McCollester and Howard Scott in 2016 and published by Allegheny County Labor Council.
“History isn’t as remote from their lives as people often think,” McCollester observes. “A lot of the time, it’s literally right around the corner.”
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 24: Pittsburgh Working-Class Sports
THIS episode of “Charlie’s Monday Marker” looks at the legacy of Pittsburgh "working-class" sports in 20th-century baseball, football and boxing. Hear the stories of Captain Bill Jones, the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, Billy...
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 23: Frances Perkins Visits Pittsburgh; JFK-Nixon McKeesport Debate
JULY 1933: U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins visited Homestead and Pittsburgh, speaking to hundreds of steelworkers ... Perkins was the first woman named to a White House cabinet position and known as "The Architect of the New Deal"...
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 22: Industrial Unionism and the CIO
PITTSBURGH WAS the site of one of the landmark gatherings of modern unionism — the founding on Nov. 14, 1938, of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), with 34 unions represented and spirited invocation delivered by Fr. Charles...
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 21: The New Deal and Labor Rights
IN 1937, in the case of National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, or Wagner Act. J&L Steel, the nation’s third...
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 20: Mother Jones and Fannie Sellins
TWO MARKERS in this episode, each recounting the leadership and heroism of two early 20th-century labor organizers working in the industrial valleys of Western Pennsylvania — *Mother Jones* and *Fannie Sellins*. CHARLIE'S MONDAY MARKER is...
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 19: The 1919 Braddock Steel Strike
Charlie’s Monday Marker ~ Episode 18: Washington and Guyasota
Charlie’s Monday Markers ~ Episode 17: Simon Girty
Charlie’s Monday Markers ~ Episode 16: McKees Rocks Mound
Charlie Monday Marker ~ Episode 15: Queen Aliquippa
Charlie’s Monday Markers ~ Episode 14: The McKees Rocks Strike of 1909
The 1909 strike at the Pressed Steel Car Company in McKees Rocks marked a major industrial rebellion by Eastern and Southern European immigrants. Two months of intense labor struggle demonstrated the immigrants' fighting spirit and...
Charlie’s Monday Markers ~ Episode 13: Harwick Mine Explosion 1904
Coal mining in Pennsylvania took a terrible toll of death and injury for workers and environmental degradation for communities. For 26 years between 1890 and 1920, mining deaths exceeded one thousand per year in the Commonwealth. The worst...