Agriculture has long been considered a discipline of the working-class and has a deep-rooted history in sociological structures of societies. It is the practice that allowed the human race to settle down and erect cities, but it has also been the industry which has led to societal conflicts and problems. A once considered a rural practice, agriculture has now begun a transition to the urban environment. Urban agriculture is vital to individuals residing in cities and has economic, education, environmental health and social benefits. Recently, the challenges of public policy have halted and staggered the implementation of urban agriculture programs. Many working-class Americans living in large cities have successfully overcome public policy challenges and are currently producing food within cities. Globally, urban agricultural activities occur in cities with varying government support and success, providing working-class individuals with varied opportunities to grow healthy food for themselves and support themselves economically.

In recent years, international comparisons and collaborations have become increasingly important within the study of working-class literature. In our paper we will discuss the advantages with this development, and how it can be further developed, specifically in the teaching of working-class literature. The point of departure for this discussion will be an on-line course given at Malmö University, Sweden, during fall 2020, to which academics from six countries (on three continents) have contributed.

This presentation reviews the efforts of three programs designed to build industrial skills among the African American community during the early twentieth century. The discussion addresses the efforts of three programs: Booker T Washington and his theory of industrial training to build self-respect at the Tuskegee Institute, Floyd Brown and his efforts to replicate Washington’s theories in Arkansas at the Fargo Agricultural and Industrial School, and Robert Lloyd Smith’s efforts to create an economic and educational resource for African Americans in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas through the Farmers Improvement Society.

This presentation comes out of my work as an archivist and librarian, in addressing invisible labor at work. Invisible labor to me, is not just about the fact that work is seen and witnessed, it is about doing work that people to understand or even acknowledge. It is work that keeps libraries and archives operating on a daily basis. One thing I have not considered in my reflections and analysis is how my own background and identity influence my perceptions about invisible labor and how I understand it to impact my life and also the lives of my colleagues.

In the Iron Heel (1907), Jack London describes a failed revolution of the working class in 1920s America. Whereas many socialists of the era eagerly expected a successful revolution in their own lifetime, Jack London offered the counter-perspective: three centuries of oligarchic capitalism would precede the emergence of a truly socialist society. The novel details this vision, mainly focusing on the heroic, but doomed, efforts of a few labor organizers in the United States. London’s novel seems to predict more accurately the events of the 20^th century than his revolutionary peers. In truth, with the rise of techno-oligarchies and global corporate power, one senses with dread the contemporary rise of an Iron Heel he chronicled in literature a century ago. Reading the Iron Heel, one is left with a grim question: were the evolutionary, revolutionary, and optimistic socialists of all stripes wrong where London was right?

• Recording from Dr. Guajardo: https://youtu.be/a9FAz7Ae9Aw
• Recording from Paul A. Guajardo: https://youtu.be/uqeNOWnCxxE

This panel focuses on Latino prison memoirs and the law. 2.3 million people in the US are incarcerated, and proportionally, minorities are the bulk of the population in prison—many are from low-income and single-parent homes. Is the primary purpose of prison to punish, to reform, or to produce a profit? Prisons are called “correctional” facilities, yet too often instead of rehabilitation, there is inhumanity and abuse. Prison has been called graduate school for criminals, but jails should be places of reformation and education. Instead, we learn, for example, that more men are raped in the U.S. than women (when we account for prisoners). The US accounts for around 5% of the world’s population but we have 25% of its inmates. President Obama visited a federal prison in Oklahoma highlighting the need for reform. President Trump attended a graduation ceremony for former prisoners also acknowledging the limitations of our carceral system.

Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1854), a condition of England novel projects the rise of industrialization and the havocs it created within the society during the Nineteenth Century. Drawing in from geography and economics, Mrs. Gaskell poignantly portrays the ill effects of rising capitalist society and its influence on mankind as a whole. The stark differences between ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’ ideals are a chief focus in the novel. This paper will look into the changes that the Industrial Revolution in the Nineteenth Century has brought in and how it affected many lives both physically and psychologically along with political and economic implications. Taking into account the novel’s major and minor characters and the industrial city Milton which in itself emerge as a character, the paper will examine the owner, the worker and the workplace in details and also bring into consideration the rise of the ‘New-Woman’ as opposed to the ideal and quintessential ‘Victorian Woman’- the angel in the house.

Panel discussion with the following:

• Moderator: Justin Jolly, Texas Christian University;
• Sam Tullock, Collin College, “‘Is Small Beautiful?’: The Economics of E.F. Schumacher and Alexander Solzhenitsyn”;
• Lishan Desta, Collin College, “The Social Contract and the American Working Class”;
• Owen Clayton, University of Lincoln (United Kingdom) “‘Laureate of the Logging Camp’: The Representation of Labor and Labourers in the writing of T-Bone Slim”

Justin Jolly, "A Tale of Two Unions: The United Packinghouse Workers of America and the International Aeronautic Machinists in Fort Worth, 1936-1946"

The city of Fort Worth’s website has a section titled “Fort Worth History”. This page outlines the high points of the city’s history from its inception as a military outpost to its current military industry. The website makes no mention of the city’s rich labor history. This omission highlights Fort Worth’s desire to appear to be a model right to work town with little to no union trouble. However, this conclusion is false. One example is the role Fort Worth workers played in the national strike wave of 1946. Both the International Aeronautic Machinists (IAM) at the Consolidated-Vultee’s Aircraft Plant and the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) at the Armour & Co. Meatpacking Plant went on strike that year. The policies of these two unions—regarding race, gender, and skilled-workers—was drastically different. Despite these differences the labor upheaval of 1946 proved to be a pivotal year where these union’s paths converged into a single goal.

Sam Tullock, "Is Small Beautiful? The Economics of E.F. Schumacher and Alexander Solzhenitsyn"

E.F. Schumacher and Alexander Solzhenitsyn shared a common economic concern, the economic and ethical future of the West. Both envisioned an economic system which emphasized small- scale, community-based business that would avoid the abuses of big government and big business. This paper will explore the viability of a small-scale economics. I particular, the paper will examine Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered and Solzhenitsyn’s commencement speech at Harvard University, 1978. The general theme of this presentation is suggested in a summary statement in Small Is Beautiful.

1. In small-scale enterprise, private ownership is natural, fruitful and just.

2. In medium-scale enterprise, private ownership is already to a large extent functionally unnecessary. The idea of property become strained, unfruitful unjust. If there is only one owner or a small group of owners, there can be, and should be, a voluntary surrender of privilege to The wider group of actual workers… Such an act of generosity may be unlikely when there is a large number of anonymous shareholders, but legislation could pave the way even then.

3. In large-scale enterprise, private ownership is a fiction for the purpose of enabling functionless owners to live parasitically on the labor of others. It is not only unjust but also an irrational element which distorts all relationships within the enterprise. These observations also represent well the concerns Solzhenitsyn expressed about the decline of the West, a decline he saw as predictive of a grave spiritual crisis in the United States. This presentation will explore the positive elements of the thought of these provocative intellectuals, and it will offer a critique of their ideas.

Lishan Desta, "The Social Contract and the American Working Class"

Since the days of the Progressive Era in the late 1800s, a triangular relationship emerged between business, labor, and government in the form of a quasi-social contract. The social contract which has seen many developments since its start has been the basis of America’s sustained economic rise and industrial peace. However, the idea of the triangular social contract came under pressure and started to unravel in the 1980s under pressure from the pro-market reforms led by the U.S. government. As the US government turned away from the social contract, the American working class was left unprotected from the caprices of the business cycles, the of waves of mergers and acquisitions, the powerful winds of globalization, and the mantra of stakeholder wealth maximization. It was the 2008/9 Great Recession and the subsequent rise of working-class populism which exposed glaringly the mistakes of abandoning the social contract. The paper investigates political economy-related ideas how a new social contract can be created that can protect the interest of the working class.

Owen Clayton, "‘Laureate of the Logging Camps’: The Representation of Labor and Labourers in the writing of T-Bone Slim"

In American popular culture, hobos have often been idealised for their freedom of movement. A notable exception to this romantic tendency was the work of the Finnish-American anarchist newspaper columnist and songwriter T-Bone Slim (Matt Valentine Huhta). Slim’s writings were radical interventions in debates around class, labor and exploitation in 1920s and 1930s America. The style and content of his work privilege truth, in contrast to newspaper representations that Slim calls ‘headlies’. His work is deeply satirical, with a scathing wit reminiscent of Mark Twain. Focusing on his representation of food, mobility, and the body, this paper will argue that Slim’s work represents a challenge to the idealistic portrayal of the hobo that appears in many contemporary autobiographies and in later academic scholarship. He challenges the idea that working class people are ignorance or unintelligent through intricate yet accessible wordplay, and by writing eloquently about the intelligence of his readership.

During the American Progressive Era (1890-1920), the growing middle class used state-led measures (through community organizations and legislative means) to address social issues. For example, middle-class folks organized reform efforts that intervened in working-class leisure spaces, like urban dance halls, which they deemed morally corrosive for the working-class youth. With attention to this reform’s rhetoric, I argue that reformer's writing not only reveals how their efforts instigated class conflict over the moral character of public space, but that reformers’ rhetoric reveals an early instance of gentrifying measures that suppress the agency of the working class to define their spaces for themselves. My attention to the history of class conflict reveals that with the genesis of the American industrial city came the early realization that the control of a public space leads to the control of public human behavior—a powerful strategy that has informed gentrification movements in the decades thereafter.

Our workshop would look at the different forms of rhetoric employed while discussing the economic downturn associated with the Covid crisis. From the Trump Administration and news talking heads’ focus on the Stock Market to the lived experience of the vast majority of Americans who do not own stock, do not participate in an entire “way of life” that includes things like investment, returns, or even stable savings. This workshop would emphasize how we can look at the language associated with access and privilegeas well as the data which illustrates the divides between classes. While Dr. Isip focuses on rhetoric, Dr. Latham will provide data on the breakdown of the portion of people who own assets (real estate, stock, etc.) and those who do not. Our workshop will engage questions like what drives the increase in asset prices (even in a recession), why the stock market is not the economy, and where is the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. Our goal is to let participants share their own experiences trying to understand this new economy, and provide them with tools to better engage in discussions about this topic.

Unions protect laborers by ensuring fair wages and supporting safe work environments. Despite these protections, union membership is declining, and technology is one contributor to this decline. While technology can improve working conditions, technology can also replace tasks and employees. The following research will explore the history of the relationship between unions and technology and through a greater understanding of this history, suggestions will be explored for pairing technology and unions to support fair wages and safe work environments in a globally and technologically advanced society.

In the institute, so called Society there are people, who exist under several groups and these groups decide their identity in the society; and this grouping is done on the basis of gender and social status. According to the social status there are two classes of people: High class and Working class. In this paper we will take reference of Tess of the D’Undervilles and Jude the obscure and discuss how an intelligent girl “Tess” was killed by the society due to her social class; “Jude Fawley”, whose sensual nature cannot be accommodated by rigid social system. In the paper we will discuss how class confusion changed everyone’s life, how an intelligent woman became outsider in her own society due to her class; how class becomes the admin of an individual’s social existence.

• Recording from Amanda Wehrmann: https://youtu.be/m4MAZ6zgIcw;
• Recording from Kayla Osborn: https://youtu.be/5Q7b7KNP_nA

This panel will feature labor activists and will explore the experiences and challenges faced by the working class in a time of mass layoffs and workplace dangers posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Working in troubled economic sectors such as the airline industry will be a particular focus.

Panelists include labor historian Chad Pearson of Collin College; Staci Gray, union organizer at BookPeople in Austin, Texas; Stephanie Kopnang, an American Airlines worker activist in the Unite Here! union; Pauline Mims, the Region 5 Women’s Council Second Vice President for the United Auto Workers; Steve Ruiz, a member of the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Legislative Committee; and Tevita 'Uhatafe, a member of the Tarrant County Labor Council Executive Board and a leader of the Asian Pacific American Alliance Local.

The 1922 national railroad shopmen’s strike shook railroad hubs across the Lone Star State. My chief interest in this conflict is the belief systems of the workers involved and the racial and gendered dimensions of their stories. I have a large collection of photographed materials from the Kheel Center and the National Archives. These images include correspondence between local white union lodges, black labor organizations, the national leadership of railroad brotherhoods, and the United States Railroad Labor Board. These communications detail the impact of the federal injunction that broke the strike, the economic and social dislocation wrought by the walkout’s defeat, and the legal woes that some strikers experienced due to their alleged participation in unlawful and violent pro-strike actions. My paper will draw on these materials, in addition to local and state records. Its central concern will be the meaning of the defeat for Texas railroad shop workers.

This paper evaluates the important issue of minority youth in the Texas criminal justice system and related socioeconomic and mental health issues. This research uses an original data collected from interviewing judges from district courts in Texas. This research looks into possible factors that may affect African American and Latino youth’s likelihood of entering the criminal justice system in Texas. It also offers a historical overview of criminal justice reform; provides information about the latest, most effective strategies used in assessing cases; assesses the social, economic, and emotional costs of criminal justice system involvement; and evaluates the impact that racial biases have in the lives of African American and Latino youth in Texas courts. Furthermore, the paper looks at the economic cost of mental health and legal aid incurred by working class minorities and analyzes the extent to which they can pay for it. Lastly, it looks at proposed solutions to better address this issue and programs that aid these minority groups. In the interviews, the research asks about their views on socioeconomic factors and programs aimed at treating minorities with mental health issues and intellectual disabilities in the judicial system, and recommendations on how to better address this population group.