A tale of two Detroit murals

A tale of two Detroit murals

Author: laborhistorytoday December 1, 2024 Duration: 31:18
Dr. Jay Cephas considers two Depression-era murals in Detroit and their contrasting messaging about workers, labor, and power. Diego Rivera’s famed Detroit Industry murals (top), commissioned by Edsel Ford for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1932, champions industrial and technological progress and the factory workers who fueled it. In contrast, Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson’s 1937 untitled mural (bottom), which originally hung in the UAW Local 174 union hall and now hangs behind the reference desk at the Reuther Library, champions the progress those industrial workers made laboring for their own welfare via union action. Dr. Cephas is Assistant Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University. His essay “Detroit Industry and ‘The Mural’: Representing Labor and Reappropriating Care in the Museum and in the Union Hall,” was published in the 2023 volume, Architectures of Care: From the Intimate to the Common.Originally aired on the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The World Loses the Miners’ Angel. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. @ReutherLibrary #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  r4

Behind every weekend, every safety regulation, and every paycheck that feels fair, there's a story-often a forgotten one. Labor History Today digs into those stories, moving beyond dry dates and names to recover the voices and confrontations that built the world we work in. Each episode connects a pivotal moment from the past, like the fight for an eight-hour day or the rise of a major union, directly to the conversations happening on picket lines and in break rooms right now. You'll hear about the strategies that succeeded, the personalities that led the charge, and the setbacks that reshaped movements. This isn't just a history podcast; it's a deep look at how understanding the battles for worker rights, from centuries ago to just decades past, provides essential context for today's struggles over wages, conditions, and dignity. Tune in for a grounded, narrative-driven exploration of how yesterday's strikes, protests, and organizing victories continue to fuel the demand for a more just tomorrow.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Labor History Today
Podcast Episodes
Christmas in Mansfield [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:27
Joe Jencks is a 25-year veteran of the international folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter, and a celebrated vocalist based in Chicago. Merging conservatory training with his Irish roots and working-class upbringing,…
The 1997 UPS Strike [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:29
“This fight isn't just for the teamsters. This is for all American workers.”This weekend, Teamsters struck Amazon in New York City, Atlanta, Skokie, Southern California, San Bernardino and San Francisco. The union repres…
Touring the American Labor Museum [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:09
On this week's Labor History Today: Touring the American Labor MuseumThe American Labor Museum in Haledon, New Jersey, is also known as The Botto House, and that’s because for generations that’s what it was: the home of…
Ybor City, Crucible of the Latina South [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:48
On this week's Labor History Today: Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made Ybor City the global capita…
The lost labor artist [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:17
Five stunning paintings depicting labor organizing, pickets and the violence directed at workers in the turbulent 1930s were almost lost to history. The story of Philip Tipperman and how a small group of people saved tho…
The Bootleg Coal Rebellion [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:17
Labor historian Mitch Troutman’s 2022 book, The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry, 1925-1942 is a detailed account of coal bootlegging in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania in the…
Together We Can Move Mountains [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:40
Bev Grant is a cultural worker from Brooklyn, NY; she’s a social justice feminist, a choral director, an occasional bandleader, a dance artist and a photographer. She’s also a much beloved singer/songwriter, and on today…
A Wild Woman Sings the Blues [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:53
“The life and music of Barbara Dane,” from The Harry Bridges Project. The story of America told through its social upheaval, its achievements and, above all, its music. Originally broadcast on WPFW's Labor Heritage Power…
Remembering the West Virginia Mine Wars [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:11
LHT tours the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum with Executive Director Mackenzie New-Walker. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1948. That was the day that a thick yellow fog rolled over the town of Donora,…
“The Union’s Inspiration” [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:21
The Pittsburgh Labor Choir’s Tom Hoffman and Kira Yeversky lead a master class in the history of labor songs in their inspirational session at this year’s Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium, recorded with a live – a…