Ordinary people, extraordinary lives : a pictorial history of working people in New York City / Debra E. Bernhardt and Rachel Bernstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bernhardt, Debra E.

Contributor:

Bernstein, Rachel Amelia, 1953-

Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Working class--New York (State)--New York--Pictorial works.

Working class.

New York (N.Y.)--Pictorial works.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

Pictorial works.

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

xiv, 221 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2000]

Summary:

This pictorial history brings to life the breathtaking and often heartbreaking stories of the men and women who, with cement and steel, needle and thread, blood, sweat, and dreams, built New York City in the twentieth century.

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives tells the stories of towering structures and the beam walkers who built them; of immigrant youths in factories and women in sweatshops; of longshoremen and typewriter girls; of dock workers and captains of industry. It provides a glimpse of the traditions they carried with them to the United States and how they helped create new ones, in the form of labor organizations that provided recent immigrants, often overwhelmed by the intensity of New York life, with a sense of solidarity and security.

Astounding in their own right, the book's photographic images, most drawn from seldom-seen collections of labor movement photographers, are complemented by poignant oral histories that tell the stories behind the images. Among the scores of extraordinary lives chronicled are those of Philip Keating (on the book jacket), who, seven years after a fellow worker photographed him painting the Queensboro Bridge in 1949, plunged to his death from another worksite; William Atkinson, who broke the color bar at Macy's and tells of fighting racism at home after fighting fascism abroad during World War II; and Cynthia Long, who fought gender barriers to become, in the late 1970s, an electrician with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3.

Contents:

1 New Yorkers at Work: Building the City 11

2 New Yorkers at Work: Faces of a Changing Economy 43

3 Creating a Culture of Solidarity: The Cradle of the Labor Movement 91

4 Rebuilding a Culture of Solidarity 145

5 New York Labor Enters the Twenty-first Century 181

A Timeline of New York City Labor History 193.

Notes:

"A Project of the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-208) and index.

ISBN:

0814798667

OCLC:

42892146