Steve Ashby, a labor studies professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, posted the following list of labor films available on the web. He made this for a workshop handout at the LAWCHA conference. What a wonderful service Steve has done for all of us.
Grand Army of Starvation, 1877 rail strikes, 10 minutes (picture quality is low)
1886 Haymarket. Excerpts from a PBS film on anarchism in America.
Part 1 (5 minutes)
Part 2 (5 minutes)
Part 3 – the trial (5 minutes)
Homestead 1892 (history channel, 15 minutes)
Andrew Carnegie and the Homestead Strike, 5 minutes
Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world, PBS American Experience, 2 hours
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, 8 minutes
Taylorism and Fordism, 8 minutes
1911 Triangle Fire YouTube 3 minutes
1911 Story of Us: Triangle, 7 minutes, YouTube
“Century of Women” on garment workers, 1909 strike, Triangle, 15 minutes
Bread and Roses 1912 strike, 6 minutes
Mother Jones, 9 minutes
Miles of Smiles: Years of Struggle, Pullman Porters, 3 minutes
Anti-racism excerpts from the film Matewan on 1920 miners’ strike, YouTube, 4 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
1932 veterans “bonus march,” newsreel, 3 minutes
1932 veterans bonus march, 3 parts, 10 minutes each
1934 San Francisco general strike, possibly PBS, 3 minutes
Also newsreel coverage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
1937, Flint, PBS, Walter Reuther and the Rise of the UAW, 15 minutes
With Babies and Banners, women and the 1937 auto sit-down strikes, 45 minutes
Union Maids, women in the 1930s labor struggles, 51 minutes
1937 Memorial Day Massacre, Chicago Republic Steel (10 minutes, YouTube, Illinois Labor History Society)
A Job at Ford’s, PBS Great Depression series, 50 minutes incl Ford hunger march
Mean Things Happening, PBS Great Depression series, 51 minutes, 1930s SFTU tenant farmers and steelworkers organizing
Other episodes in PBS documentary series on Great Depression
The Road to Rock Bottom, 53 mins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
New York, New York, 53 mins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
We Have a Plan, California, 53 mins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
To Be Somebody, civil rights, 53 mins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Arsenal of Democracy, WWII, 53 mins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
AFL and CIO 1935 split, newsreel, 7 minutes
John L. Lewis speaking to Congress, newsreel, 4 minutes
1946 strike wave, newsreel, 6 minutes
1946 strike wave, 21 minutes
Seeing Red, film, part 1 –documentary on radicals and anti-communism with many interviews 10 minutes (entire film 11 parts on YouTube)
Salt of the Earth, feature length film, 1954
1968 “I am a man,” AFSCME, (YouTube, 10 minutes)
Nixon Intervenes in 1970 Postal Strike, TV coverage, 8 minutes
The Story of OSHA, 29 minutes, OSHA documentary
1973 Harlan County strike, Harlan County USA, 80 minute film
ABC Nightline on 1980s union-busting, 8 minutes
1989 Pittston miners’ strike, 10 minutes (civil disobedience)
Deadly Corn, 1992-95 Staley lockout, 25 minutes
Struggle in the Heartland, 1992-95 Staley lockout, 25 minutes
1997 Teamsters strike against UPS, produced by Teamsters, 8 minutes
Enjoy!!