Working History

Working History

By Working HistoryHistory
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Working History episodes

  • Working History, Past and Future

    US history has always been contested. The work of historians is to constantly challenge and revise existing historical interpretations using new methods, source materials, and analytical frameworks. The past two years have been different though: historical understanding, and often the institutions that support and sustain the work of professional historians, have been subject to a sustained critique from officials within the federal government. Yami Rodriguez and Justin Randolph sit down with Beth English, the founder of "Working History," to discuss the history of the podcast, her current work at the Organization of American Historians, and the future of the historical discipline. 

     

    Works Cited:

    Winant, Gabriel. 2026. “Is It Over?” Tribune, August 13, 2026. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2026/08/is-it-over.

    English, Beth, and Christopher Sellers. "Who Owns American History?" Dissent, August 4, 2026. Dissent Magazine. https://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/who-owns-american-history/ 

    ***

    For more information on the We Want More History initiative, please visit: https://www.oah.org/2026/07/07/we-want-more-history-a-national-day-of-history-in-public/ 

     

    For more information on the Southern Labor Studies Association Conference (September 2027, at Hillsborough Community College in Ybor City, Tampa, FL), please visit: https://southernlaborstudies.org/conferences 

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    Working History is a joint project of:

    The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/; 

    The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/; 

    LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor; 

    and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history;

    Follow the links to join and subscribe today!

     

    This episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Alex Dunphy and Patrick Dixon. Our music was composed and recorded by Alex Greene, a member of AFM Local 71. 

     

    For updates, follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/workinghistorypodcast/ 

    33 min
  • Ghosts of World War II: Recovering Korean Forced Laborers

    Mae Ngai sits down with historians Ágota Duró ( Hiroshima Jogakuin University) and David Palmer ( University of Melbourne, Australia) to discuss  the history of Korean forced labor in Japan during World War II, and the ongoing grassroots movement uncover and expose this tragic history through the excavation and returning of their remains to Korea.

     

    Their full article from International Labor and Working-Class History can be found here:

    Ágota Duró and David Palmer, “Japan’s Forgotten Korean Forced Laborers: The Search for Hidden Wartime Graves in Hokkaido.” International Labor and Working-Class History 106 (2024): 311–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547924000048.

    ***

    See also:

    Higashi Ajia Wakushoppu (East Asia Workshop) https://www.sasanobohyo.com/eacworkshop 

    Shumarinai Forced Labor Museum: https://en.sasanobohyo.com/about-museum

    ***

    Works Cited:

    Ágota Duró, Japanese Advocacy for South Korean Hibakusha: From Colonialism to Cooperation. Bloomsbury Academic, (forthcoming 2027).

    David Palmer, “Japan’s World Heritage Miike Coal Mine—Where prisoners-of-war worked ‘like slaves,’” The Asia Pacific Journal/Japan Focus 19, no. 13 (July 1, 2021)

    David Palmer, “The Straits of Dead Souls: One Man’s Investigation into the Disappearance of Mitsubishi Hiroshima’s Korean Forced Labourers,” Japanese Studies 26, no. 3 (December 2006): 335–52.

    David Plath, So Long Asleep: Waking the Ghosts of a War (Massachusetts: Documentary Educational Resources, 2016) (video documentary) https://filmfreeway.com/940830

    Chung Byung-Ho, “Coming Home after 70 Years: Repatriation of Korean Forced Laborers from Japan and Reconciliation in East Asia,” The Asia-Pacific Journal / Japan Focus 15, no. 35 (June 15): 2017.

    Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Colonialism in Korea, Final Report of the Commission’s Activities (Republic of Korea, June 2016)

    Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/26168.

    Kim Min-Young, Hoskaido (baehaedo) saspolo byeol-won sojang yugoljosa (Investigation into Remains held by Hokkaido Sapporo Betsuin Temple Annex), Japanese Forced Mobilization Victims Support Foundation, Dec. 2017

    Takeuchi Yasuto, Chōsa: Chōsenjin Kyōsei Rōdō—Tankō Hen (Investigation: Korean Forced Labor—Coal Mine Volume) (Tokyo: Shakai hyōronsha, 2013).

    Takeuchi Yasuto, Senji Chōsenjin Kyōsei Rōdō Chōsa Shiryōshū (Wartime Korean Forced Labor Research Documents) (Kobe Student Youth Center, 2022)

    ***

    Working History is a joint project of:

    The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/; 

    The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/; 

    LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor; 

    and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history;

    Follow the links to join and subscribe today!

     

    41 min
  • ICE and Resistance in the Twin Cities

    David Stein sits down with historians Will Jones (Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) and Peter Rachleff (Retired Professor at Macalester College and Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library) to discuss ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region this past winter.  They explore how resistance on the part of activists, scholars, and the labor movement fits within the longer history of working-class mobilization in Minnesota.

     

    Works Cited:

    William P. Jones and Greg Nammacher, “Operation Metro Surge Wasn’t the End,” Dissent, September 19, 2026.  https://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/trump-2026-midterm-elections-democracy-twin-cities/

     

    Emily Witt “What Happened in Minneapolis,” New Yorker, August 31, 2026 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/09/07/what-happened-in-minneapolis

     

     

    Working History is a joint project of:

    The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/;

    The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/;

    LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor;

    and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history;

    Follow the links to join and subscribe today

    51 min
  • The Business of Being Dolly

    Dolly Parton: renowned country star, successful businesswoman, celebrated philanthropist... leftist? Not so fast.

    In this week’s episode Yami Rodriguez and Justin Randolph sit down with historian Amanda Marie Martínez (UNC, Chapel Hill), to discuss Parton’s legacy in the wake of her recent death and to challenge some of the myths and misconceptions that have been built up around the Queen of Country.

     

    Works Cited:

    Jessica Wilkerson, “Living with Dolly Parton,” Longreads, Oct 16, 2018, https://longreads.com/2018/10/16/living-with-dolly-parton/

    Tressie McMillan Cottom “The Dolly Moment,” Substack, Feb 24, 2021, https://tressie.substack.com/p/the-dolly-moment.

    Tressie McMillan Cottom, “Loving Dolly Was Easy. Understanding Her Was Hard,” New York Times, Aug 27, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/opinion/dolly-parton-appalachia-legacy.html

     

    Working History is a joint project of:

    The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/;

    The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/;

    LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor;

    and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history;

    Follow the links for more information on how you can join and subscribe today.

    47 min
  • The Women of Mexico's Railroads

    When we think about the history of railroad labor, we often think of engineers, sleeping car porters, or the workers who constructed the railroads themselves. But what about the cooks, nurses, and laundresses who kept the railroads running? In this episode, Abosede George sits down with Kate Reed, a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, to discuss her research on women workers on Mexico’s railroads and her recent article, “Rights to Her Labor: Women Workers on Mexico’s Southeastern Railroads,” published in International Labor and Working-Class History: https://cup.org/47Gquib

     

    Working History is a joint project between:

    The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/;

    The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/;

    LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor;

    and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history

    Follow the links to join and subscribe today!

    42 min
  • Back to School

    School may have returned for the fall, but what are the challenges facing teachers unions and their members as we approach the midway point of Trump 2.0?

     

    In this week's episode of Working History, Joan Flores-Villalobos met with UTLA member Jake Roth, labor organizer Katie Miles from UC Berkeley, and historian Nick Juravich from UMass Boston to discuss how unions are confronting budgetary shortfalls, ICE raids, and how effective reform can only take place when community and labor work together.

    48 min
  • The Handoff

    It's official, "Working History" is back!  In our first episode back, Beth English—the founder, host, and producer of "Working History" vol 1—interviews Sarah McNamara, president of the Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), Eileen Boris, president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), Julie Greene, editor of LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, and Mae Ngai, senior editor of International Labor and Working-Class History (ILWCH). Together they discuss their vision for the podcast, developments in labor history, global authoritarianism, and labor issues past and present. 

    48 min
  • Working History Reboot Promo

    After several long years off the air, the beloved labor history podcast is back!

    Now brought to you by the Southern Labor Studies Association, the Labor and Working-Class History Association, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, and International Labor and Working-Class History.

    New episodes will drop weekly, starting Thursday, September 24, 2026. Follow along and stay tuned for more Working History!

    3 min
  • Fall for Liberation with Maria Harmon
    Step Up Louisiana co-founder and co-director Maria Harmon joins the podcast to talk about the group’s Freedom Summer-inspired voter turnout campaigns and grassroots mobilization efforts in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Jefferson Parish, New Orleans’ proposed Workers Bill of Rights, and the future of economic and education justice organizing in Louisiana.
    30 min
  • Organizing Faculty in Florida with Paul Ortiz
    Dr. Paul Ortiz, a professor of labor history at Cornell’s ILR School, joins co-host Olivia Paschal to discuss the history of higher education labor organizing in Florida, the resurgence of right-wing and austerity politics in public universities, and Dr. Ortiz’s work in higher education labor organizing. Until last year, Dr. Ortiz was a professor of history and director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, where he spent fifteen years. Dr. Ortiz is also the past president of United Faculty of Florida-UF and has organized with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and other labor organizing groups. His books include An African American and Latinx History of the United States and Emancipation Betrayed.
    Correction: In the episode, Olivia says that public-sector workers in Virginia can't collectively bargain. While that is true for state-level public sector workers (like university employees), collective bargaining is possible on the local level thanks to a 2020 law that gives local governments and school boards the authority to allow collective bargaining. Collective bargaining for all!
    36 min

About Working History

From the publisher's feed

Working History is a podcast brought to you by labor history organizations and journals, where we discuss labor issues past and present.