LibGuides: Introduction to the History of the Labor Movement: Welcome! Start Here

What to Expect and What to Gain

This introductory and diverse online research guide is the result of a Summer 2024 project held both by the UC Merced Library and the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. As a graduate student researcher, I completed the first stage of a reading list that covers the history of the Labor Movement and the working class, especially highlighting the Central Valley and rural labor in the United States.

This is a varied sample of some of the most interesting/relevant genres, aspects, characters, and events that I encountered and constitute an important part of this history of hope, power, resistance, and resilience.

This project was supervised by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco.

Learning Outcomes

Find resources about the history of the Labor Movement
Identify the foundational theory/thought on the Labor Movement and the working class
Recognize how the theory/thought on the Labor Movement and workers has evolved
Acknowledge the different genres/media that have constituted the Labor Movement, and the creative ways in which workers have engaged with the causes of the Labor Movement
Identify relevant authors, thinkers, characters, events, and organizations that have shaped the history of the Labor Movement
Recognize the importance of rural work and the role of rural workers in the history of the Central Valley, California
Identify key characters, organizations, and events that have shaped the history of the Labor Movement and workers in the Central Valley, California

Labor History Photographs held by UC Merced Library Special Collections

This guide features photographs from the Ernest Lowe and the George Ballis Photography Collections. Both collections are held by UC Merced Library's Special Collections.

Ernest Lowe Photography Collection
Ernest Lowe studied photography in the late 50's with the noted social documentarian, John Collier Jr. His other models were the classic images of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and other Farm Security Administration photographers. In 1959 Lowe joined the staff of Pacifica radio station KPFA and almost immediately began documenting the lives of migrant farm workers. The photographs in this collection document the lives and struggles of the farmworking communities in California's Central Valley. They are held by the UC Merced Library Special Collections and digitally available through Calisphere.
George Ballis Photography Collection
In 2022, the UC Merced Library announced that it had acquired the photography collection of George Ballis, who began his career in the Central Valley as an editor of the Valley Labor Citizen newspaper, was mentored by Dorothea Lange and UC Berkeley professor Paul Taylor, and started documenting farm labor and living conditions in the Central Valley in the 1950s. The physical collection is held by UC Merced Library Special Collections.

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Introduction to the History of the Labor Movement

Guide Creator - Carlo Acevedo

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What to Expect and What to Gain

Learning Outcomes

Labor History Photographs held by UC Merced Library Special Collections