LaborHistory, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2002

Labor Historyon the WorldWide Web: Thoughts onJumping onto a Moving Express Train

THOMASDUBLIN

The World WideWeb has undergoneremarkable expansionof late andthis growth poseschallenges toall historians.In anarticle publishedrecently in the Journal of AmericanHistory ,Roy Rosenzweigoffered a variety ofmeasures of that growth: the Online ComputerLibrary Center,for instance,reported a Žvefoldincrease in unique websites between 1997 and2000, estimating some7.1 million sitesin October 2000; theSearch engineGoogle indexed some 1.3 billion webpages, a Žgure that now exceeds1.6 billion asthis article isbeing written(November– December 2001); and searchable databaseson the World WideWeb, not accessible to conventional search engines,by someestimates total 550 billion webpages. 1 Ashistorians weare all used tosome version of the information explosion,but this is really toomuch! What sense canlabor historians make ofthevast newresources now accessible on theWorld Wide Web,and how can we best draw on these resources for ourresearch and teaching? It isdifŽ cult to climb upona moving train, butclimb onthis expresswe must. And while noone can claim to“ keepup” with therapidly changing stateof the World WideWeb, it is important totake stockof some of the more important resourcesavailable onthe Weband to consider strategies for keeping abreast ofthis information explosion. In this article, Ioffera sketchof resources currently onthe World WideWeb that shouldbe of interest to labor historians.As LaborHistory begins this issuewith new editorsand a newMission Statement, it seemsan opportune moment for this sortof stock-taking.That statementre ects the ways that theŽ eldof labor history haschanged in themore than 40 years sincethis journal Žrstappeared. Topics that play alarger role in labor history in 2002 than wasthe case in 1960 includethe representation of work andan emphasis onlabor systems.The expanding interestin issuesof gender and the domesticsphere in thesocial reproductionof labor also might surprisethe journal’ s foundinggeneration. The Cultural Turn has had its impact onlabor history, asin all Želds,and so thecultural dimensionsof class are increasingly afocus.And Ž nally, the expansionof the geographical range ofthe journal toinclude Canadian and Latin American history reects the increasing importance ofglobal andcomparative approaches within thehistorical discipline.In this surveyof recent developments on the World WideWeb, I will try tocast my netas widely asthe journal’ s newMission Statement. Asa fastmoving target, theweb demands strategies todeal with its constant transformation. Considerthe fate of a surveyof theweb published in this journal alittle more than twoyears ago. JohnH. Summerswrote a Žneessay exploring “American

1Roy Rosenzweig,“ TheRoad to Xanadu: Public and PrivatePathways on the HistoryWeb,” Journal ofAmerican History 88(2001), 550,552.

ISSN0023-656Xprint/ ISSN1469-9702online/ 02/030343–14 Ó 2002Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/0023656022000001823 344 ThomasDublin labor history onthe World WideWeb.” Still, ofabout 50 historical sitesdescribed in thearticle, asearchin theearly fall of2001 foundmore than athird ofthe web links nolonger reachable at theaddresses given in thearticle’ s notes. 2 Siteswere temporarily down,had movedto new addresses, or had simply beendiscontinued in theintervening period.Given the  uidity ofsites and the web’ s continualgrowth, historians needto developstrategies toŽ ndsitesthat have movedor appeared sincethe publication ofsite reviewsor review articles. Search strategies are particularly important toolsin keeping abreast ofthe web’ s dynamism. Yetthe commonly employed searchengines can access only atiny fraction ofthe resourcescontained on the web. In his recentarticle Rosenzweigmade two distinctions which are important tokeep in mind whennavigating theWorld WideWeb. He noted thedifferences between the surface web and the deep web, and between the public and private webs. 3 The distinctionsare important ones,and historians will dowell tothink abouttheir implications for their work.The distinctionbetween surface and deep webs islargely thedifference between web sites that consistof searchable pages that are indexedby public, automatedsearch engines such as Google and Altavista andsites that consistof databases searchable only by internal searchengines. For example, the AmericanMemory projectof theLibrary ofCongressconsists (as of November 2001) of more than 100 distinctcollections and more than 7million digitized items. 4 To access thedepths of these digitized collections,one needs to search through databasescreated by staffat theLibrary ofCongress. Butbeyond the surface and the deep webs, which together comprise thepublic web, thereis also theprivate web.Resources on the private webare available tothose who are willing andable topay for access.Online journalsare among themost important scholarly resourcesin theprivate web.Students and teachers at collegesand universities that subscribeto JSTOR, ProQuestDirect , or Expanded Academic ASAP have the capability ofsearching extensiveruns of current and historical newspapersand period- icals.5 Recently,more focusedresearch collections, such as the GerritsenCollection— Women’s HistoryOnline, 1543–1945 and NorthAmerican Women’ s Lettersand Diaries , have appeared onthe World WideWeb, offering studentsand faculty at subscribing collegesand universities remarkable opportunitiesto conduct full-text searchesof an astonishing array ofprinted primary sources. 6 The private web,according toRosen- zweig,now accounts for some20% ofcontenton the World WideWeb, and its share

2John H.Summers, “TheFuture of Labor’ s Past: AmericanLabor Historyon the WorldWide Web,” LaborHistory 40(1999), 69–79; for an earlieroverview of American history on the web, seeMichael O’Malleyand Roy Rosenzweig,“ BraveNew World or Blind Alley? AmericanHistory on the WorldWide Web,” Journal ofAmerican History 83(1997), 132–155. 3Rosenzweig,“ Road to Xanadu,”552. 4American Memory:Historical Collections ofthe National Digital Library ,http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ ammemhome.html. Following currentpractice, I italicizeall names ofweb sites and usequotation marks fordocuments, articlesor subsections on awebsite– as onewould do with articlesin ajournal orchapters within apublished book. 5Itis not possible to provide staticweb addresses (URLs) for these three resources. I have accessedall ofthem through the library webpages at the State Universityof New York at Binghamton and readers will needto accessthem through similar pagesat academicinstitutions orlibraries with which they are afŽliated. Accessto theseprivate websites is by institutional subscription only. 6Both ofthese databases areavailable by subscription only, but readerscan Ž nd out moreabout their resourcesat the webpages of the companies that have developedand marketedthem: ProQuest (http://www.umi.com/products/pd-product-gerritsen.shtml)and AlexanderStreet Press (h ttp://www. alexanderst.com/PSNAWLD.htm). Essay Reviews 345 isgrowing. Clearly, theability toconduct pointed, effective searches in thedeep web andthe private webwill becrucial for labor historians.After treating valuable sitesfor labor historians accessibleon the public web,in theŽ nal sectionof this article Idiscuss strategies for accessingresources in thedeep and private portionsof the web. Oneof the Ž rstways to begin exploring labor history onthe World WideWeb is to examine theextensive bibliographies ofweb sites that have emerged:webographies, in thenew terminology. HistoryMatters ,awebsite maintained jointly by theAmerican Social History Projectat City University ofNew York andthe Center for History and NewMedia at GeorgeMason University, is aparticularly goodplace tobegin. 7 At this sprawling website, the “ WWW.History”section offers lists ofannotated American history sites.More than 30 categories ofsites—organized by time period,topical focus, andregion— offer groupings ofweb resources. Employing thesite’ s full-search capa- bility, underthe heading “Labor &labor movements,”for instance,the webography lists 245 sitesof possible interest. If weadd “ Women”to our search and limit thetime period to1890–1930, weŽ ndthat thesearch returns 31 possibleweb sites. Among the more usefulsites that comeup in thecomprehensive listing are the AmericanMemory projectof the Library ofCongress, the New DealNetwork ,with its rich holdings of photographs andtexts, and the Dramasof Haymarket ,aChicago Historical Society projectexploring theHaymarket Affair ofMay 1886, its aftermath, andlegacy. 8 History Matters is ever expanding andis currently adding aseriesof online essays with interactive examples in anewsection entitled “ Making senseof evidence.” Learners’ guideswill explore theuse of photographs, oral history, andquantitative evidence, along with avariety ofother kindsof evidence. The sitealso offersnumerous sets of resourcesespecially aimed at contributing tothe teaching ofhistory. The “Digital blackboard”provides teaching assignmentsthat utilize theWorld WideWeb; “ Students asteachers” offers examples ofstudent work on the web; and “ Syllabus central” presentssyllabi for U.S.history or American studiessurvey courses. The searchability ofthe site makes it particularly valuable for teachersof labor history. Anotherresource with broad coverage is theweb site of the Gilder LehrmanInstitute ofAmerican History .The resourcessection of this siteincludes annotated documents, links toaudio and visual resourceson theweb, a searchengine accessing a larger body ofweb sites, and an online textbook. The sitealso includesa link totheweb site of the afŽ liated Gilder LehrmanCenter for the Study ofSlavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University,which “is dedicatedto the investigation anddissemination of information concerningall aspectsof the Atlantic slave systemand its destruction.”The slavery centersite includes a collectionof 200 documentswith asearchable database,providing accessto documents by author,date, subject, and document type. This website provides extensivematerials onthe slave labor systemof the Atlantic World. 9 While the HistoryMatters and Gilder LehrmanInstitute websites serve as gateways to American history andoffer rich labor history-related materials aspart ofthis function, sometimesmore focusedsites can serve similar purposes.Of anumberof web sites

7History Matters ,http://historymatters.gmu.edu/.Othervaluable webographies, which will not be discussedin any detail, areavailable in aloose-knit collectionof listings, the WWWVirtual Library , http://vlib.org/,which includes“ Labour and business,”at http://www.iisg.nl/ , w3vl/,and listingsof links on “U.S. labor history,”at http://www.geocities.com/mlause.geo/AmLabHist/VL.html. 8To reachthese sites directly, go to the New Deal Network at http://newdeal.feri.organd Dramas of Haymarket,at http://www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/overview/over.htm. 9You canaccess the GilderLehrman Institute website at http://www.gliah.uh.edu/index.cfmand the SlaveryCenter siteat http://www.yale.edu/glc/. 346 ThomasDublin createdby Gerald Zahavi ofthe State University ofNew York at Albany, themost valuable for labor historians is an undergraduatecourse web site, Workersand Workin America,1600 to the Present: A Multimedia Course .Providing a25-page syllabus, brimming with referencesto World WideWeb sites and audio and video materials related tothe course, the site gives an excellentview oflabor history resourceson the Web.10 Zahavi has also played amajor role in thecreation ofthe U.S. Laborand Industrial HistoryWorld Wide WebAudio Archive, awebsite developed in conjunction with TalkingHistory ,which includesan audio archive ofradio programming focusing onhistorical themes. 11 For example, the LaborArchive includesaudio of sessionsat the Columbia University “Teach-in with theLabor Movement”in October 1996 anda variety oforal history interviewsand recorded speeches, while TalkingHistory offers fouryears ofweeklyradio programming, including discussionsof child labor, labor day, civil rights, women’s rights, andimmigrant women.Labor history appears frequentlyin theonline journal that Zahavi co-edits,the Journalfor MultiMedia History . There oral history anddocumentary photography are featuredprominently in onlinearticles exploring Harlan County,Kentucky and the anthracite region ofnortheasternPennsyl- vania.12 Finally, Zahavi has begunwork on two projects that emerge outof his own research, Life and Laborin aCorporateCommunity: AnOn-line Historyof the Endicott JohnsonCorporation and TheGlovers of Fulton County .13 Whether teaching, editing others’work, or publishing his ownresearch online, Zahavi hasan excellent feel for the useof multimedia resourcesand for waysto take advantage ofthe capabilities of electronicmedia. Anotherexcellent site providing documentsand images ofinterest to labor historians isthe New Deal Networkweb site, directed by Thomas Thurston. 14 Asof this writing, theever-expanding siteincludes some 900 documentsand 5000 images, indexed separately. Photosare accessibleby adetailedsubject index, documents by subject, date,and author. There are extensive,separately listed,writings by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.Featured online projects focus on a variety oftopics, including 1930s WPA narratives offormer slaves,two projects on the Civilian Conservation Corps,and an archive ofarticles from theprogressive journal ofthe period, Survey Graphic. “Labor in the1930s bibliography”offers author andsubject indexes to a listing ofbooksrelated totheNew Deal era, broadly conceived. 15 Finally, anextensive classroom sectionoffers lesson plans, examples ofstudent work, curriculum projects, andadditional resourcesfor teaching about theDepression. Moving beyondwebographies anddatabases, historians will Žndmore focusedsites that explore speciŽc topicsor groups oftopicsgermane tolabor history in thewestern hemisphere. TheDramas of Haymarket, for instance,explores theorigins ofcon ict that eruptedin theHaymarket Affair in May 1886, thetragedy itself,and its aftermath and

10GeraldZahavi, Workersand Work in America ,at http://www.albany.edu/history/history316/ his316f2000.html. 11To accessthese two sites,see http:/ /www.albany.edu/history/LaborAudio/index.html and http:// www.talkinghistory.org/. 12SeeCharles HardyIII and AlessandroPortelli, “ ICan almost Seethe Lightsof Home– A Field Trip to HarlanCounty, Kentucky,”in volume 2(1999)and Thomas Dublin and MelissaDoak, “Miner’s Son, Miners’Photographer: TheLife and Workof George Harvan,” in volume 3(2000), both in Journal for MultiMedia History ,at http://www.albany.edu/jmmh. 13Endicott Johnson Corporation ,at http://www.albany.edu/history/ejand The Gloversof Fulton County , at http://www.albany.edu/history/glovers. 14New Deal Network, at http://newdeal.feri.org. 15Thebibliography canbe found at http://newdeal.feri.org/laborbib/index.htm. Essay Reviews 347 consequences.AfŽ liated with this interpretive siteis the HaymarketAffair Digital Collection,anonline archive developedcooperatively by NorthwesternUniversity and theChicago Historical Society.Digitized documentsinclude more than 3000 pages of transcripts oftestimony and cross-examinations at theensuing Haymarket Trial, evidencebooks from thetrial, andhandwritten autobiographies ofseveral defendants. 16 The breadth anddepth of primary sourcesincluded in thesetwo sites will permit studentsand scholars alike toconduct signiŽ cant long-distance research on the Haymarket Affair in thefuture. The 1909–1910 Shirtwaist Strike in NewYork City is another labor conict that can beextensively researchedon the World WideWeb. A quick Googlesearch of sites accessibleon the public web(November 2001) revealed at least 1310 locationsfor relevant material. Foremost among theseis a documentaryproject focusing on the “Relationship betweenworkers and allies” in thestrike, part ofthe extensive web site, Womenand SocialMovements in theUnited States, that Ico-directwith Kathryn Kish Sklar.17 The Shirtwaist projectincludes 23 documentsand nine images drawnfrom contemporary sources,including translations ofYiddish-language newspapercoverage ofthe strike. With aninterpretive introduction,headnotes to individual documents,a bibliography ofpublished sources, and a list ofrelated World WideWeb links, the projectis part ofa larger collectionof primary documentsand supporting materials focusingon women and social movementsin theU.S. Other labor-related projectson thesite include treatments of the origins ofInternational Women’s Day, factory inspectionand labor legislation in Illinois in the1890s, the1912 LawrenceStrike, a 1934 garment workersstrike in Mayaguez, PuertoRico, and a 1938 pecanshellers strike in SanAntonio. This example showsnicely howa searchon one particular topic canlead seamlesslyto other, related resources.Curious researchers Ž ndingthe Shirtwaist Strike documentsand images shouldexplore thebroader siteof which those materials are part, and,in theprocess, discover rich resourceson gender in the American labor movement. 18 Anotherweb site that has caught theattention of studentsand teachers is the site of the EmmaGoldman Papers at University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, developedin conjunc- tionwith themajor editorial andmicroŽ lming projectdirected by CandaceFalk. 19 The siteincludes an extensive online guide to the life ofEmma Goldmanand documentary sourcesas well aselectronic versions of a representative group ofdocuments and writings by Goldman.These is also anonline exhibition, and,most useful, a substantial curriculum for middle-and high-school students.Well beforeit wascommon for academic projectson the web, the organizers ofthe Emma GoldmanPapers realized the educationalvalue oftheir workand made a consciouseffort to reach outbeyond their college anduniversity audience.

16To reach the Digital Collection, separately, goto http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/index.html. 17The“ Shirtwaist Strike”editorial project is accessible at http://womhist.binghamton.edu/shirt/ doclist.htm. For the broader Women andSocial Movements website, see http:/ /womhist.binghamton.edu. This website, developed at the State Universityof New York at Binghamton, is co-directedby Kathryn Kish Sklar and the author, who trustsreaders will excusehim fordirecting them to an educationalsite he has had such alargerole in developing. While focusingon women and socialmovements quite generally, the student-basedprojects include extensive primary documentsrelated to issuesof gender and class. 18Along theselines, readersmay Žnd it usefulto explorethe “Links”section of this siteat http://womhist.binghamton.edu/links/mainlink.htm, which offerslinks to avarietyof labor-related sites in abroadercollection of more than 60sitesrelated to women and socialmovements. 19EmmaGoldman Papers ,http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/. 348 ThomasDublin

Three other sitesdeserve mention and re ect the proliferation ofexcellent focused sitesin American labor history. Child Laborin America,1908– 1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine provides arich collectionof images that Hinecreated while employed by the National Child Labor Committee.Part of TheHistory Place ,aprivate, commercial web site,the collection is shorton documentation and interpretation, butthe photographs are gripping. 20 TheBisbee Deportation of 1917, anonline exhibit producedby the University ofArizona Library, provides reports,newspaper accounts, recollections, and photographs ofthis notoriousevent. Legal documentsassociated with subsequent, unsuccessfulattempts toprosecute the organizers ofthedeportations include extensive correspondenceassociated with thedeportations and IWW publications.Like the HaymarketAffair website, the Bisbee onlineexhibit will permit seriouslong-distance researchby labor history studentsand scholars. The siteis a modelof the means by which anarchive canutilize theWorld WideWeb to reach outand tell animportant story toa broad audience. 21 Finally, Likea Family is awebsitefocusing on the oral history ofsoutherncotton textile mill communities,based on the prize-winning bookof thesame title. 22 Drawing onphotographs andaudio clips oforal history interviews,the website offers rare primary materials that high schooland college studentscould use effectively toexplore important elementsof southern labor history. Teaching exercises invite comparisonswith other material available onthe World WideWeb. The online publication ofthe Child Labor, Bisbee, and Likea Family websites makes a real contributionin bringing labor history sourcesto a broader audiencethan scholarly monographs andjournals are ever likely todo. While sitesrelated toU.S. labor history predominate in general searchesof theWorld WideWeb, one can easily widenthe focus to labor in theAmericas. A useful webography onCanadian labor history canbe found at theweb site of Le Gauche Revue.Afewclicks lead oneto a more focusedlisting ofwebsites related tothe “ 1919 Winnipeg general strike.”Tracing thenetwork of links from this siteleads one to Canada’s DigitalCollections ,afederal projectemploying Canadianyouth todigitize collectionsand assist cultural institutionsin making their collectionsmore accessibleto abroad public. 23 “Labour”is akeywordon the site’ s subjectindex andprovides links tosites related toCanadian automobile workers,coal mining in CapeBreton, United

20ChildLabor in America,1908– 1912, at http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/in- dex.html. Labor historians may also want to examinethe Dorothea Langeimages of migrant workers, also published on this siteat http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html. 21The Bisbee Deportation of1917, at http://digital.library.arizona.edu/bisbee/index.php. Theone component ofthe sitenot consistentwith its generallyhigh quality isthe 12-minutevideo, which, in its effortto maintain aneutraltone, largelyskirts the moral implications ofthe deportation and its aftermath, missing an opportunity to explorethe meaningof events for an audiencetoday. Examination ofthe video would provide teachersand studentsa thoughtful criticalexercise, as it is riddledwith fuzzythinking and evasion that areworth exploring. 22Likea Family, at http://www.ibiblio.org/sohp/,is based on the oralhistories gathered in the process ofresearching Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, James Leloudis,Robert Korstad,Mary Murphy, LuAnn Jones, and Christopher B.Daly, Likea Family:The Making ofa Southern Cotton MillWorld (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press,1987). 23Le Gauche Revue ,http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/labhistindex.htm, bringsone to the “Canadian labour history”webography on this largersite. For the links to websites related to the 1919 GeneralStrike in Canada and to generalstrikes in othertimes and places, seehttp:/ /www.geocities.com/ CapitolHill/5202/GenStrike.htm. For an excellentweb site developed by James Gregoryat the University ofWashington, focusingon the 1919Seattle General Strike (and listedin this webography), see http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/strike/strikehome.htm. Finally, forthe website for Canada’s Digital Collections ,seehttp:/ /collections.ic.gc.ca/E/home.html. Essay Reviews 349

Steelworkersof America-Canada, andthe Cradle ofCollective Bargaining, among others. For Latin American labor sitesthe labor webography oftheLatin American Network Information Center(LANIC) at theUniversity ofTexas provides extensivelists ofweb sitesin English,Spanish, and Portuguese. 24 The focusis notexclusively historical, but thereare rich historical resourcesas well asweb sites of contemporary Latin American labor organizations andsites focusing on Latin American labor issues.A sampling of linked sitesmay beuseful for readersof this journal.A Haitian website, BatayOuvriye (Workers’Fight), offersan English-language versionthat remindsreaders of the interconnectionsof social movementsthroughout thehemisphere, with links tosuch North American sitesas SweatshopWatch , the NationalLabor Committee , and UNITE. The Mexicansection of thewebography lists numerousEnglish-language resourceson labor issuesof concernin both Mexicoand the United States. LosBraceros, 1942– 1964 , for instance,provides athoughtful,English-language treatment oftheBracero Program that suppliedMexican migrant farm labor in theU.S. West and Southwest for more than twodecades. Finally, asectionon regional labor resourcesprovides links tothe Labor,Globalization and Human RightsProject ofthe Resource Center of the Americas and to SWEAT LaborMagazine ,with coverage oflabor newsand opinion in Canada, theU.S., and Mexico. 25 Working-class cultureis another elementof labor history that canbe accessed well on theWorld WideWeb. Several academic centersprovide usefulresources, including the Centerfor Working-class Studies at YoungstownState University andthe Groupfor the Study ofWorkingClass Life at theState University ofNewYork at StonyBrook. 26 The Youngstownsite describes the university’ s innovative graduate certiŽcate in working- classstudies, and offers a rich exhibit oftexts and images onYoungstown, and extensivelinks toweb sites of labor museumsand sites dealing with issuesof working- classculture. The StonyBrook website explores the“ meaning ofclass in today’s world”and offers a variety ofongoing projects,including agallery ofposters, photos, andmurals ofthe working classtoday, video clips from adocumentary,“ Classcounts,” andstudy guides and questions geared for usewith TheWorking Class Majority: America’s BestKept Secret ,by thegroup’ s director,Stony Brook professorof economics, Michael Zweig. 27 The labor movementhas generatedweb sites with rich resourceson working-class culture. Labor Arts is anexample ofone such site, co-sponsored by Bread andRoses, acultural projectof New York’ s Health andHuman Service Union1199/ SEIU,the Robert F.Wagner Labor Archives at NewYork University,and the Shelley andDonald RubinFoundation. 28 The collectionssection offers graphic art focusingon various labor themesand periods of time. Linksin this sectiontake viewersto resources from

24Thewebography for“ Labor issuesin Latin America”on the LANIC website is found at http:// lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/labor. 25For Batay Ouvriye ,seehttp:/ /geocities.com/CapitolHill/2539/english/2luttes/p12.htm. Sweatshop Watch canbe found at http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/industry, with the National Labor Committee website at http://www.nlcnet.org/,and UNITEat http://www.uniteunion.org/. LosBraceros is locatedat http://www.farmworkers.org/benglish.html, while the Labor,Globalization andHuman Rights Project website is at http://www.americas.org/labor/index.htm, and SWEAT LaborMagazine is at http://www.sweatmag.org/. 26Center forWorking-class Studies website, http:/ /www.as.ysu.edu/ , cwcs/; Group forthe Study ofWorking Class Life,http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/wcm.nsf. 27MichaelZweig, The Working ClassMajority: America’ s Best Kept Secret (Ithaca: ILRPress,2000). 28Labor Arts,at http://www.laborarts.org/. 350 ThomasDublin avariety oflabor projectsand archives. Anexhibits sectionof theweb site offers three distinctexhibits, oneoffering a“labor arts sampler,”examples of“artistic expressions ofthe labor movementthat have movedworking people toaction,” the second, a sampling ofphotographs from therecently published book, Ordinary People,Extra- ordinaryLives: A PictorialHistory of Working People in New YorkCity ,andthe third, “Images oflabor,” an extraordinary collectionof labor posters. 29 Labor Arts is a sophisticatedmultimedia sitethat will appeal equally tostudents, faculty, and non-academicaudiences. The labor movementhas also generatedsites that speakto organizing effortsin the past andpresent. The GeorgeMeany Center for Labor Studiesand UNITE have sites that will reward avisit. At theAFL-CIO’ s labor educationcampus in Silver Spring, Maryland, the GeorgeMeany MemorialArchives is probably theresource that will beof mostinterest to labor historians. 30 Asectionon using the archives containsan extensive onlineguide to the collections, offering detaileddescriptions of holdings focusingon theAFL-CIO. Collections from thecivil rights andinternational departmentsspeak to issuesof increasing interestto labor historians,as also are therecords of the American Federation ofWomen’s Auxiliaries ofLabor.An online exhibit onA. Philip Randolph explores his workfor theBrotherhood ofSleeping Car Porters andas a civil rights activist with documentsand images that speakto the broad commitment for social justicethat characterized Randolph’s life. 31 The UNITE website re ects the activist bentof this newvoice for garment andtextile workers. 32 The StopSweatshops Campaign has aprominent place onthe site with reports oninitiatives undertakenby college andhigh-school studentsas well aslegislative successesin NewYork City and Cleveland.An elaborate “Linksand resources” section refers viewers to web sites reecting avariety ofnational andinternational effortsto oppose child labor and superexploitation. The “Organize”section reports onorganizing activities throughout North America. The “Memberresources” section provides agoodview ofthe range of activities andservices this unionoffers its membership. Finally, a“Researchand teaching”section offers a gooddose of labor history, with atimeline that coversa centuryof union history, including thefounding of the International LadiesGarment Workers Union,the Amalgamated Clothing Workers ofAmerica, andother unionsthat contributedto the emergence of UNITE in 1995. Other institutions(like unions)that dependon public patronage have beenamong thepioneering developersof web sites in an effortto reach their target audiences. Archives andrepositories in thelabor history andlabor studiesŽ eldshave developed websites to inform thepublic abouttheir resourcesand to help usersof their resources towork more effectively.Visiting theweb sites of archives beforemaking aresearchtrip tothe actual archives has becomea crucial componentof effective research in recent years.Even students and teachers not planning aresearchtrip canbeneŽ t from exhibits postedby archives andrepositories andincreasingly they will Žndonline electronic publications that provide accessto resources formerly buriedaway in basement repositories.These are all resourcesthat will reward thepersistent traveler onthe web’ s information highway.

29DebraE. Bernhardtand Rachel Bernstein, OrdinaryPeople, ExtraordinaryLives: A Pictorial History of Working People in New YorkCity (NewYork: NewYork UniversityPress, 2000). 30George Meany MemorialArchives, at http://www.georgemeany.org/home.html. 31“A.Philip Randolph, 1889–1979,” at http://www.georgemeany.org/apr.html. 32UNITE website, at http://www.uniteunion.org/. Essay Reviews 351

Ausefulexample ofanarchival website is that ofthe TamimentInstitute Libraryand theRobert F. WagnerLabor Archives at theBobst Library at NewYork University. 33 Beginning with abrief history ofthearchives, thehome pages for thesite permit access toonline Ž ndingaids, online “ pathŽnders” — annotateddescriptions of materials in the collections—and online exhibits. The pathŽnders are particularly usefulfor readersof this journal,providing, in turn,a guideto Yiddish labor andradical movements, referencesources in U.S.labor studies,and sources in U.S.women’s labor history. Eachof these speciŽ c guidesleads viewers, in turn,to links toadditional resources, both print andelectronic. The labor studiesguide, for instance,has links to15 labor-related websites in Canadaand the U.S. The women’s labor history guidenotes more than 60 websites of likely interest.Finally, onlineexhibits offerrich material for usein teaching. Oneexhibit explores “Labor andthe Holocaust,” drawing principally onthe massive archival collectionfor theJewish Labor Committee.Another exhibit presentsthe work of the post-World War IIlabor photographer, Sam Reiss.Both exhibits introduceviewers to rich collectionsand will nodoubt stimulate additional archival researchin theoriginal primary sources,but they also standas valuable resourcesin their ownright. Other archives andcenters provide equally goodpoints of entry intothe labor history andlabor studiesŽ elds.The KheelCenter at theILR Schoolat Cornell,the Harry Bridges Centerfor Labor Studiesat theUniversity ofWashington, and the Walter P. ReutherLibrary at Wayne StateUniversity eachoffers a website that labor historians will wantto explore. 34 The KheelCenter web pages describeits collections,which are particularly strong in materials onneedle trades unions, labor arbitrators, NewYork City teachers’unions, and industrial relations in therailroad industry.An excellent exhibit onthe notorious “ Triangle Shirtwaist Žre”includes a narrative ofevents and numerousprimary documentsand images ofthe disaster, as well asa bibliography and tips for studentprojects. The Centerfor Labor Studies has twoongoing, onlineresearch projectsthat will beof interest to labor historians: anextensive treatment ofthe “ 1919 Seattle general strike,”including photographs andprimary documents;and the “ Labor PressProject,” with detailedreports ona great many Northwestlabor andradical newspapers.The ReutherLibrary includesextensive documentation of its manuscript collections,serving asthe library doesas the ofŽ cial repository for recordsof theUAW, theUFW, the AFT, andthe SEIU unions, among others.Urban Detroit has been another focusof collecting, andexcellent online exhibits drawupon the strengths of the library’s collections. Evenmore sothan archives andrepositories, museums depend on a broad,public audience.Most museums have beenaware ofthe importance ofpublicizing their exhibits andprograms, if only toattract their share ofthe museum-going public. Increasingly, though,museums have also beenusing the medium ofthe World Wide Webto disseminate exhibits beyondtheir ownphysical walls.Online exhibits thus becomea valuable resourcefor labor historians,often a resourcefor research,but also avaluable addition in theclassroom. Discussion of three recent labor history exhibits will offera goodsense of what is possiblein theworld of virtual exhibits. The Eugene V.DebsFoundation provides anexcellent introduction to an important

33Tamiment Institute Libraryand the Robert F.Wagner LaborArchives ,at http://www.nyu.edu/library/ bobst/research/tam/. 34Kheel Center ,http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheelcenter; BridgesCenter forLabor Studies , http:// depts.washington.edu/pcls/Centerfor labor studies.htm; Reuther Library ,http://www.reuther.wayne. edu/. 352 ThomasDublin labor leader andactivist for social justice. 35 Atimeline provides asuccinctsummary of Debs’s biography, while asubstantial array ofphotographs further documentshis life. Other sectionsof the site emphasize his rolesas a labor leader andpolitical activist. A sectionon social justiceprovides treatmentsof Debs’s commitment towomen’ s rights, children’s rights, andpaciŽ sm. There is material providing avirtual tourof the Debs housein Terre Hauteand a Žnal sectionoffering aselectbibliography for further reading. The siteis amodestone, but a particularly effectiveway toreach beyondthe walls ofthe Debs house to a national audience. The CanadianMuseum of Civilization in Hull,Quebec, offers a muchmore extensiveonline exhibit exploring Canadian LabourHistory, 1850– 1999 .36 This site is notas strong visually asmost online exhibits, buthas thoughtful one-pagetreatments ofwide-ranging topicsorganized chronologically in major groupings from “Beginnings,”“ Workers unite,”and “ Labour’s revolt,”to “ The dark years,”“ Labour’s advance,”and “ Newdirections.” It also offersaudio clips associatedwith thehistorical overviews.A substantial bibliography directsreaders to a widerange ofsecondary worksthat cover thebreadth ofCanadian labor history. Finally, theSmithsonian Institutionhas madea contributionto American labor history with its onlineexhibit, Betweena Rockand aHardPlace: A Historyof American Sweatshops,1820– Present .37 Organized in theway that onewould proceed through the physical exhibit, this virtual treatment takesone past successiveexhibit panels,culmi- nating in themoving reconstructionof asweatshopraided byCalifornia authorities in August1995. In asectionentitled “ Dialogue,”six speakersaddress issues concerning currentdebates. Statements from Kathie LeeGifford, the head of Levi Strauss,the chairman ofK-Mart, an ofŽ cer of the Department ofLabor underClinton, an anti-sweatshopactivist, andJay Mazur,President of UNITE,provide contrasting,but “ofŽcial” statements on sweatshop issues. All ofthe sites discussed so far canbe found on what Roy Rosenzweighas called the surfaceweb and the public web.Submit appropriate searchterms on the leading web searchengines, and you will Žndthese web sites and the documents, images, and interpretations that they offer.One can certainly get agoodeducation in labor history operating onthis level, butwhat Iglossover hereis how much amateurish and inaccuratematerial youwill Žndconducting such searches. As mentioned above, a searchfor the1909 Shirtwaist Strike yieldedroughly 1300 possiblesites. We all work hard, butnone of usis likely totrack downall ofthose sites to Ž ndthehalf-dozen best ones.Certainly suchweb searches are part ofany researchstrategy, butwe also need totake advantage ofless accessible resources found in thedeep web and the private web.Some examples shouldmake clear thevalue ofthis broader approach. The collectionsof the AmericanMemory projectof the Library ofCongress and the National Archives provide someof the most accessible labor history resourceson the deepweb. Citations in the HistoryMatters website include brief descriptionsof: Americafrom the Great Depression to World War II: Photographsfrom the FSA-OWI, 1935–1945; Voicesfrom the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and RobertSonkin Migrant WorkerCollection, 1940– 1941 ; ANew Dealfor the Arts ; and AmericanLife Histories: Manuscriptsfrom the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936– 1940 .38 All fourof these collections

35Debs Foundation site,http:/ /www.eugenevdebs.com/index.htm. 36CanadianLabour History, 1850–1999, at http://www.civilization.ca/hist/labour/lab01e.html. 37Between aRock anda HardPlace, at http://americanhistory.si.edu/sweatshops/. 38To reachthese sites individually, goto: Americafrom the GreatDepression to WorldWar II: Photographs fromthe FSA-OWI,1935– 1945, at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html; Voices fromthe Dust Essay Reviews 353 have rich labor history resources,and the AmericanLife Histories projectwill serveas a usefulexample ofhow one can tap thedatabases prepared bytheLibrary ofCongress asit digitized extensivecollections for onlineuse. From thehome page ofthe Federal Writers’Project website, one can choose to doa keywordsearch. Selecting, as an initial example, theterms “ union”and “ strike”returned 124 documentsincluding both those termsin thetext. The Žrstdocument in thelist, atypescript ofa life history collected in Lynn,Massachusetts, in January 1939, is entitled“ Unionsand strikes.” The Žve-page recollectiondescribes strikes in Lynn’s shoemaking industryin the19th century,the ethnic composition of the Lynn shoe workforce, and relations onthe shop oor.The seconddocument, a 12-page transcript, focuseson organizing for the American CommunicationsAssociation during the1930s. Narrowing thesearch by adding “Lynn”to its termsreduces the life histories listedto 13, anicenumber for an undergraduateterm paper assignment.Substituting “ French Canadian”as an addi- tional term (rather than “Lynn”) yields 13 differentlife histories for apossiblepaper topic,while substituting“ North Carolina”as the additional term returnssix life histories for analysis. Asthese examples suggest,the life histories provide arich trove ofprimary documentsfor teaching andresearch purposes. Extensiveonline collections of scholarly journalsare becoming another resourcethat labor historians will needto explore for their researchand teaching. JSTOR, for instance,is anon-proŽt, but subscription-based, database that provides lengthy runsof the AmericanHistorical Review , the Journalof AmericanHistory (andits predecessor,the Mississippi ValleyHistorical Review ), the Journalof NegroHistory , the Journalof Southern History, and the William& MaryQuarterly, among other journals. 39 While historians have beenable toconduct online searches in America:History and Life for sometime, JSTOR permits extensivesearching in thefull-text versionsof scholarly articles. An example may illustrate themuch greater possibilities offull-text searching. Supposeyou were beginning aprojecton some aspect of the work of John R. Commons,long acentral Žgure in thelabor history Želd.A commonplace tobegin the workwould be the online version of America:History and Life ,wherea quick subject searchwould reveal at least 36 articles since1963 with substantial relation toCommons andhis work. 40 If wenext head into JSTOR,weŽ ndthat in thefull-text versionsof history journals,there are 143 articles sincethe 1910s in whicheither “JohnCommons” or “JohnR. Commons”is mentioned. We can access the electronic versions of the individual articles andexplore thespeciŽ c placesin thediscussions in which Commons comesup. Moreover, if webroaden our search to include economics, history, and sociology journals,John R. Commonsproves to be the author of37 articles for which wehave full-text versionsin JSTOR.Moreover,we can follow upthese references by

Footnote 38 continued Bowl: The CharlesL. Toddand Robert Sonkin Migrant WorkerCollection, 1940–1941 , at http:// memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html; ANew Deal forthe Arts ,at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/ newdeal/newdeal.html; and American LifeHistories: Manuscripts fromthe FederalWriters Project, 1936–1940 , at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. 39As with othersubscription-based webresources, JSTOR doesnot have astaticlocation on the web, but is accessiblethrough library home pagesof institutions that subscribeand thus make the searchtools and electronictexts available to students, teachers,and staffat those institutions. You may also be able to accessJSTOR at public researchlibraries that subscribe. JSTOR has receivedfunding from the Andrew W.MellonFoundation and isincorporated as anon-proŽt organizationwith trusteesdrawn from a mix ofleaders of major academicinstitutions and the corporateand foundation worlds. 40Again, America:History andLife, likeJSTOR, is available through institutional subscription and ispart ofthe private web. 354 ThomasDublin conductingsearches of the World WideWeb using a standardsearch engine such as Google.Through that means,we Ž ndabout 1300 webpages with referencesto Commons.Exploring theŽ rst100 ofthese links andtracking downsome of the webpages notedthere, we Ž ndat least twomore onlinetexts, a 1931 journal article, “Institutional economics,”and Commons’ s 1934 autobiography, Myself.41 Betweenthe public andprivate, thesurface and the deep webs, there are clearly more than adequatesources to launch a seriousexploration ofthe labor economist,John R. Commons. In locating full-text resourcesfor researchand teaching thereis one particularly valuable public webresource. The On-line BooksPage isan excellent online, searchable indexof booksavailable freeof charge onthe World WideWeb. 42 This webpage is the workof John Mark Ockerbloom, alibrarian at theUniversity ofPennsylvania, who maintains thesite with only limited institutional support.The sitepermits searching for booksby author and/ortitle, including wordsfound in thetitle. Aquick title searchfor “labor,”for instance,yielded 20 titles,including worksby Caroline Wells Healey Dall, HelenMarot, and Karl Marx. Nineof the titles are foundon the web site Making of America,anextensive online library of19th-century booksand articles that libraries at theUniversity ofMichigan andCornell University are digitizing with supportfrom the AndrewW. MellonFoundation. 43 Additional sourcesof online electronic texts can be foundat theUniversity ofVirginia, with more than 3600 titles in its ModernEnglish Collection in itsElectronic Text Center. 44 Readerswho access any ofthese collections will Žndnumerouslinks toadditional full-text resources.While noneof these archives specializes in digitizing booksor articles in labor history, all will have onlineresources ofinterest to labor historians. This discussion,of course, could continue indeŽ nitely, becausethe list ofonline resourcesof interest to labor historians is almost limitless. Beforeconcluding it may be helpful toillustrate therange ofuses to which one can put the World WideWeb in one’s researchand teaching. Readerswill nodoubt know of many additional possibili- tiesbut these uses, drawn from my ownwork in recentmonths, will serveto illustrate thedramatic waysthat theweb can be of assistance to labor historians. Teaching is the Žrst obviousplace. Two years ago Itaught theŽ rsthalf ofU.S. history surveyfor my departmentwhen a colleague whoteaches the course regularly wason leave with a fellowship.I wasdiscontented with therelative lack ofpublished primary documentsfor usein theclass and so began asearchof the web. Quite quickly Icame upwith an excellentarray offree resources and added web-related assignments to the course

41John R.Commons, “Institutional Economics”(1931), at http://www.ecn.bris.ac.uk/het/commons/in- stitutional.txt, and John R.Commons, Myself (1934), at the Libraryof Congress’ s American Memory site, “Pioneeringthe UpperMidwest: Books fromMichigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820–1910,” at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html. 42On-line Books Page, at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/lists.html. This website has an extensive webography ofonline archives with additional listingsof full-text books. Seehttp:/ /onlinebooks.library. upenn.edu/archives.html. 43You canview the two halves of Making ofAmerica ,at the respectiveMichigan and Cornellweb sites, http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/and http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/.As ofthis writing(December 2001) the Universityof Michigan home pagefor the projectindicates that it consistsof 8500 books and morethan 50,000articles with 19th-centurydates of publication. TheCornell home pageindicates that its portion consistsof the textsof 267 books and 100,000articles. Both sectionsof the projectare expanding continuously. 44For adescriptionof the ModernEnglish Collection, seehttp:/ /etext.lib.virginia.edu/eng-on.html. The collectionincludes English books since1500. Essay Reviews 355 syllabus for eight ofthe 15 weeksof the semester. 45 This semesterI have beendoing an independentstudy with twograduate studentsbased on a courseI have taught periodically over theyears, an examination ofcomputers and quantitative methodsfor historians.The studentsdiscovered quite early in thecourse that they couldgo tothe web,search for thenames of some standard statistical procedures,and Ž ndexcellent brief discussionsof these tests that wereoften better than theones available in the textbooksI assignedfor thecourse. As I revise thecourse syllabus this summer,I’ ll be going more systematically tothe web to Ž ndsuchsupplementary readings for students. This past weekI have beenreading grant applications asI prepare toserve on a panel for theNational Endowmentfor theHumanities. I wasstruck by howmany ofthe proposals madereference to World WideWeb sites that theapplicants had developed or werein theprocess of developing that wereclosely related tothe subject matter of theproposals. At least threeof the applications includedCD-ROMs in their packets whichI accessedwhile reviewing theproposals andfor alarger numbermy judgments werein uenced in part by thequality ofearlier workcompleted on accessible web sites. Finally, Iusethe web every day in my ongoing researchand writing. Iam completing ajointbook with Walter Lichtof the University ofPennsylvania, Facing Industrial Decline,whichexplores thedecline of the anthracite coal region ofnortheastern Pennslvania in the20th century.On the web several years ago Ifounda fascinating set ofpapers, “ The economicwar among thestates,” examining interstatecompetition to attract businessinvestment and making acasefor federal legislation toadopt tax policies that wouldundermine that sortof cut-throat competition. 46 As I explore Pennsylvania’s effortsto reindustrialize in theface of the decline of coal mining, it provesextremely valuable tohave onlineaccess to this broader national debate.I have also foundrich quantitative dateon the web, national public usesamples of 20th- centuryfederal censusesavailable from theIntegrated Public UseMicrodata Seriesat theMinnesota Population Center,University ofMinnesota. 47 This onlinesource provides 1% anonymoussamples for theU.S. asa whole,including thecounties that comprise theanthracite region ofPennsylvania, for mostcensus years in the20th century.I am able toexamine thechanging occupational structureof the regional economy,the composition of families in theregion, andchanging genderpatterns of employment by drawing onsamplesfrom thefederal decennialcensuses for theperiod that weare studying.Years ago, this sortof data wasavailable only onhard-to-access computertapes from theInteruniversity Consortiumon Political andSocial Research at theUniversity ofMichigan; nowthe data are accessibleon the web. And,of course, for bibliographical workand fact-checking, the web is unmatchable. Iemploy theonline catalog ofmy university ona daily basis andŽ ndWorldCat, ResearchLibraries Information Network,and the Library ofCongress catalogs

45Thesyllabus and the webassignments for that courseare at http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/ , hist103/.Ihave developeda moreextensive web site for an undergraduatecourse on U.S. immigration and ethnicitythat Iteachregularly. For the versionof the syllabus beingused in the springterm 2002, seehttp:/ /bingweb.binghamton.edu/ , hist264a. For veryuseful examples of syllabi forthe American history surveycourse, including faculty annotations oftheir syllabi, seethe “Syllabus central”section of the History Matters site,at http://chnm.gmu.edu/us/syll.taf. 46Seethe website developed by MinnesotaPublic Radio, The Economic Waramong the States, at http://news.mpr.org/features/199605/01wittl econwar/.TheKennedy School ofGovernment has developeda casestudy on the issueat http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/battle/.Economistsat the FederalReserve Bank in Minneapolis have taken aleadingrole in the debateon this issue.See http:/ / minneapolisfed.org/sylloge/econwar/. 47IPUMS-USA, at http://www.ipums.org/usa/index.html. 356 ThomasDublin invaluable. The library at theState University ofNew York, Binghamton, permits me toorder interlibrary loan books,recall books,or retrieve them from offsitestorage, all onthe web. After I purchasedmy Žrst CD-ROMcopy ofthe Encyclopedia Britannica , Idiscoveredthat ourlibrary subscribedto that resourcefor all its studentsand faculty, andthe array ofonline journals and indexes available through thelibrary ismind- boggling. For ordering hard-to-Žnd out-of-print books for my research,I usedto periodically visit booksellersor leave standingreminders of titles Iwasinterested in. Now I go to BiblioŽ nd orasimilar websiteand I canŽ nddozens of copiesof such titles andnote the prices for booksin various conditions. 48 And,Ž nally, theweb provides me accessto email back at my homeinstitution when I am traveling onresearch trips (or evenvacations), but perhaps Ishouldview that asa burdenas much as a blessing! The World WideWeb has dramatically revolutionized publishing over thepast decadeand has made a newmedium available toa remarkably broad andeclectic group ofindividuals andgroups. Much of the material onthe web is non-commercial andis available freeto people who can Ž ndit. Anincreasing share ofweb resources is the productof either fundedor commercial activity andaccess is available by individual or institutional subscriptionor individual purchase.Enterprising individuals, suchas Gerald Zahavi andJohn Mark Ockerbloom, have createdwonderful resources for the restof us to enjoy. Major American corporations are producing extensive,for-proŽ t collectionsof online journals, photographs, evenarchives. Wewill nevergrasp more than atiny fraction ofthe available resourceson the web, but by making theeffort to learn aboutthose resources relevant toour chosen Ž eldsand periods, we openourselves andour students to remarkable newpossibilities. In theprocess we may follow a historian’s 21st-centuryversion of the dictum of one19th-century scholar whorevolu- tionizedthe Ž eldsof economic and labor history: thepoint, after all, isnot simply to interpret history butto change it. 49 Atthe very least wecan change ourown practice of history.

48Now an Amazon partner,at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/books/misc/biblioŽnd.html/ 103–1864828– 2327851. 49KarlMarx, “ Theseson Feuerbach,”in Marxand Engels: Basic Writings on Politics andPhilosophy, ed. LewisS. Feuer(New York: Anchor Books, 1959),245.