America's Workers Have Been Singing, Reciting, Performing, Telling Stories, Writing, And Publishing For More Than Three Centuries. Ranging From Early Colonial Times To The Present, American Working-class Literature Presents More Than 300 Literary Texts That Exemplify This Tradition. It Demonstrates How American Working People Live, Labor, Struggle, Express Themselves, And Give Meaning To Their Experiences Both Inside And Outside Of The Workplace. The Only Book Of Its Kind, This Groundbreaking Anthology Includes Work Not Only By The Industrial Proletariat But Also By Slaves And Unskilled Workers, By Those Who Work Unpaid At Home, And By Workers In Contemporary Service Industries. As Diverse In Race, Gender, Culture, And Region As America's Working Class Itself, The Selections Represent A Wide Range Of Genres Including Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Memoir, Oratory, Journalism, Letters, Oral History, And Songs. Works By Little-known Or Anonymous Authors Are Included Alongside Texts From Such Acclaimed Writers As Frederick Douglass, Upton Sinclair, Tillie Olsen, Philip Levine, Maxine Hong Kingston, And Leslie Marmon Silko. A Rich Selection Of Contemporary Writing Includes Martin Espada's Poem Alabanza About The September 11, 2001, Attack On The World Trade Center. American Working-class Literature Is Organized Chronologically Into Seven Sections That Highlight Key Historical And Cultural Developments In Working-class Life. The Book Is Enhanced By An Editors' Introduction, Section Introductions, And Individual Head Notes For Each Selection That Provide Biographical And Historical Context. A Timeline Of Working-class History, Rich Illustrations, Sidebars, Reading Lists, And A Bibliography Of Critical Commentary Are Also Included. This Unique Volume Is Ideal For Courses In American Literature, Cultural And Working-class Studies, And Labor History.--book Jacket. I Early American Labor: Hard, Bound, And Free 1600s-1810s 1 -- The Trappan'd Maiden: Or, The Distressed Damsel (mid-1600s) 6 -- / James Revel The Poor, Unhappy Transported Felon (1680s) 7 -- / Gottlieb Mittelberger Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey To Pennsylvania In The Year 1750 And Return To Germany In The Year 1754 (1754) 13 -- Petition Of A Grate Number Of Blackes To Thomas Gage, May 25, 1774 16 -- / Olaudah Equiano [i Was In Another World: The Slave Ship] From The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written By Himself (1789) 16 -- / Phillis Wheatley To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary Of State For North America, Etc. (1773) 23 -- A Sea Song 25 -- / Francis Hopkinson The Raising: A New Song For Federal Mechanics By A.b. (1788) 26 -- / John Mcilvaine Address To The Journeymen Cordwainers L.b. Of Philadelphia (1794) 27 -- Tecumseh's Speech To The Osages (winter 1811-12) 28 -- Ii New Kinds Of Work, Old Practices 1820s-1850s 31 -- Sorrow Songs And Spirituals 33 -- Nobody Knows De Trouble I've Seen 34 -- Steal Away To Jesus 35 -- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 35 -- Many Thousand Gone 35 -- Bredden, Don't Git Weary 36 -- / W.e.b. Dubois The Sorrow Songs (1903) 36 -- / Maria W Stewart Lecture Delivered At The Franklin Hall, Boston, September 21, 1832 44 -- The Lowell Mill Girls 48 -- / Josephine L. Baker A Second Peep At Factory Life (1845) 49 -- / Mary Paul Letters To Her Father (1845-1848) 52 -- The Lowell Factory Girl 58 -- / Harriet Hanson Robinson Characteristics Of The Early Factory Girls (1898) 59 -- / Helena Minton From The Same Cloth: For The Mill Girls, Lowell, Massachusetts, Circa 1840 (1985) 62 -- / Frederick Douglass [in The Shipyards] (1845 And 1855) 62 -- An Address To The Colored People Of The United States From The North Star (1848) 68 -- / Herman Melville The Paradise Of Bachelors And The Tartarus Of Maids (1855) 72 -- / John Greenleaf Whittier The Ship-builders (1850) 85 -- / Fanny Fern (sara Payson Willis Parton) Soliloquy Of A Housemaid (1854) 87 -- The Working-girls Of New York (1868) 88 -- / Frances Ellen Watkins Harper The Slave Mother (1857) 90 -- / Harriet E. Wilson Keep Her ... She's Real Handsome And Bright, And Not Very Black, Either. 91 -- / Walt Whitman A Song For Occupations (1855) 96 -- The Wound-dresser (1865) 101 -- Nineteenth-century Work Songs 103 -- Peg An' Awl 104 -- Paddy Works On The Railway 105 -- The Housekeeper's Lament 106 -- The Farmer Is The Man 107 -- John Henry 108 -- Iii Beneath The Gilded Surface: Wording-class Fictions And Realities, 1860-1890s 111 -- / Rebecca Harding Davis Life In The Iron Mills (1861) 113 -- / I.g. Blanchard Eight Hours (1866, Poem; Set To Music, 1878) 137 -- / Lucy Parsons To Tramps (1884) 140 -- Songs Of The Knights Of Labor 142 -- Knights Of Labor (1898) 143 -- Storm The Fort, Ye Knights (1885) 144 -- Thirty Cents A Day (1892) 145 -- America (1890) 145 -- Father Gander's Melodies (1887) 146 -- One More Battle To Fight (1892) 147 -- The Battle Of Homestead, 1892 148 -- Aaisw Preamble (from The Constitution Of The Amalgamated Association Of Iron And Steel Workers) 150 -- Tyrant Frick 150 -- A Man Named Carnegie 151 -- Father Was Killed By The Pinkerton Men 152 -- A Fight For Home And Honor 153 -- / Stephen Crane The Men In The Storm (1894) 154 -- / Hamlin Garland Under The Lion's Paw (1889) 158 -- / Edwin Markham The Man With The Hoe (1899) 167 -- Lifelets: Life Stories Of Undistinguished Americans From The Independent 169 -- A Georgia Negro Peon (1904) 169 -- The Autobiography A Labor Leader: James Williams (1902) 174 -- A Negro Nurse (1912) 178 -- / Maxine Hong Kingston The Grandfather Of The Sierra Nevada Mountains From China Men (1980) 182 -- Angel Island Poems By Chinese Immigrants (1910-1940) 197 -- Iv Revolt, Represssion, And Cultural Formations: 1900-1929 201 -- / Eugene V. Debs How I Became A Socialist (1902) 204 -- Statement To The Court (1918) 207 -- Miners' And Other Labor Poems 209 -- / J.a. Edgerton The Man Behind The Pick (1903) 211 -- Scab, Scab, Scab (1904) 211 -- / Shorty P. The Eight Hour Day (1904) 212 -- / Joe R. Lazure A Colorado Miner's Fourth (1905) 212 -- / J.p. Thompson Union Poem (1909) 215 -- / Unknown Worker Labor Speaks (1909) 215 -- / Joe Foley Wadda Ya Want To Break Your Back For The Boss For (c. 1917) 216 -- / Berton Braley The Worker, (1917) 216 -- / Eugene Barnett Political Prisoners (1921) 217 -- St. Peter And The Scab (1923) 217 -- / Upton Sinclair [the Hog-squeal Of The Universe] From The Jungle (1906) 219 -- / Jack London The Apostate (1906) 226 -- Pinched: A Prison Experience (1907) 238 -- / Rose Schneiderman A Cap Maker's Story (1905) 245 -- The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, March 25, 1911 249 -- / Rose Schneiderman, Triangle Memorial Speech (1911) 251 -- / Morris Rosenfeld Requiem On The Triangle Fire (1911) 251 -- Contemporary Poems On The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 253 -- / Mary Fell The Triangle Fire 253 -- / Chris Llewellyn Four From Sonya, I Am Appalled, Survivor's Cento, Sear 257 -- / Carol Tarlen Sisters In The Flames 260 -- / Safiya Henderson-holmes Rituals Of Spring (for The 78th Anniversary Of The Shirtwaist Factory Fire) 261 -- / James Oppenheim Bread And Roses (1914) 265 -- / Arturo Giovannitti The Walker (1914) 266 -- / John Reed War In Paterson (1913) 271 -- Fellow Workers: Iww Oral Histories 277 -- (from Solidarity Forever, An Oral History Of The Iww 1985) 277 -- / Sophie Cohen Paterson Had A Prison-like Feeling 277 -- / James Fair Working The Docks 282 -- / Mother Jones The March Of The Mill Children (1903) 284 -- The Wobblies, The Little Red Song Book, And The Legacy Of Joe Hill (1879-1915) 289 -- / Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Joe Hill-martyred Troubador Of Labor From The Rebel Girl: My First Life (1906-1926) 290 -- / Joe Hill The Rebel Girl (song) And Letter To Elizabeth Gurley Flynn 294 -- From The Little Red Song Book (1913) 294 -- Preamble Of The Industrial Workers Of The World 294 -- / Joe Hill The Tramp 295 -- / Ralph Chaplin Solidarity Forever! 296 -- / Joe Hill The Preacher And The Slave 296 -- / T-bone Slim The Popular Wobbly 297 -- / Joe Hill Joe Hill's Last Will 298 -- / Ralph Chaplin Mourn Not The Dead 298 -- / Alfred Hayes Joe Hill (1928) 299 -- / Cheri Register A Dream Of Joe Hill (2000) 299 -- / Sarah N. Cleghorn Through The Needle's Eye: 1. Comrade Jesus 308 -- 2. Quatrain (1915) 309 -- / Carl Sandburg Chicago (1916) 310 -- Muckers (1916) 311 -- Child Of The Romans (1916) 311 -- From The People, Yes (1936) 312 -- / Lola Ridge The Ghetto (1918) 314 -- / Anzia Yezierska The Free Vacation House (1920) 328 -- / Edith Summers Kelley Billy's Birth, Restored Chapter Of Weeds (1923) 333 -- Poetry Of The Harlem Renaissance 342 -- / James Weldon Johnson O Black And Unknown Bards (1908) 344 -- / Jean Toomer Reapers (1923) 345 -- / Claude Mckay The Harlem Dancer (1917) 345 -- If We Must Die (1919) 345 -- The Lynching (1920) 346 -- / Countee Cullen For A Lady I Know (1925) 346 -- From The Dark Tower (1927) 346 -- / Sterling A. Brown Ma Rainey (1930) 347 -- Scotty Has His Say (1932) 348 -- Call Boy (1932) 349 -- / Alice Dunbar-nelson I Sit And Sew (1920) 350 -- / Angelina Weld Grimke Fragment (c. 1930) 351 -- / John Beecher Report To The Stockholders (1925) 351 -- Beaufort Tides (1934) 354 -- / Bartolomeo Vanzetti Last Speech To The Court (1927) 354 -- / Agnes Smedley [the Wanderlust In My Blood] From Daughter Of Earth (1929) 357 -- Mining Families 1937 364 -- V Economic Depression And Cultural Resurgence: 1930s 367 -- / Langston Hughes The Weary Blues (1925) 369 -- Johannesburg Mines (1928) 371 -- Christ In Alabama (1931) 371 -- Park Bench (1934) 371 -- Let America Be America Again (1936) 372 -- Office Building Evening (pub. 1960) 374 -- / Genevieve Taggard Words Property Of The People (1934) 374 -- Life Of The Mind, 1935 (1935) 375 -- At Last The Women Are Moving (1935) 376 -- / Mary Heaton Vorse The Emergency Brigade At Flint (1937) 377 -- / Mike Gold Go Left, Young Writers! (1929) 380 -- Jews And Christians From Jews Without Money (1935) 383 -- Appalachia Voices 389 -- / Aunt Molly Jackson Kentucky Miners' Wives Ragged Hungry Blues (1932) 391 -- / Sarah Ogan Gunning I Am A Girl Of Constant Sorrow 392 -- / Kathy Kahn They Say Them Child Brides Don't Last: Florence Reece From Hillbilly Women (1972) 393 -- / Florence Reece Which Side Are You On? (1931) 396 -- / Jim Garland The Murder Of Harry Simms 399 -- / Tillman Cadle Commentary On Harry Simms (1932) 400 -- / John Dos Passos Harlan: Working Under The Gun (1931) 400 -- / Maggie Anderson Among Elms And Maples, Morgantown, West Virginia, August, 1935 (1986) 408 -- Mining Camp Residents, West Virginia, July, 1935 (1986) 408 -- Long Story (1992) 409 -- / Don West Clods Of Southern Earth: Introduction (1946) 411 -- Mountain Boy (1931-1932?) 415 -- Clodhopper (1940) 416 -- There's Anger In The Land (1950) 417 -- No Lonesome Road (1940) 418 -- I Am A Woman Worker: A Scrapbook Of Autobiographies From The Summer Schools For Women Workers (1936) 419 -- Soldering 419 -- One Day Of Labor 420. Edited By Nicholas Coles, Janet Zandy. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 893-902) And Indexes.

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