Rank:



UIC Distinguished Professor
Director of WRGUW (Graduate Concentration in the History of Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World)
Department of History
Editor, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas

Address:

University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of History (M/C 198)
913 University Hall
601 South Morgan Street
Chicago, IL 60607-7109

Phone: (312) 413-9357; (312) 996-3141
Fax: (312) 996-5799
E-mail: leonfink@uic.edu

Education:

1977	Ph.D.	University of Rochester
1971	M.A.	University of Rochester
1968-69		Independent year of study at the Centre for the Study of Social History, University of Warwick
1970	B.A.	Harvard University (high honors)
Languages		French, German, Spanish

Areas of Expertise:

• U.S. & Comparative Labor History
• History of Work
• Gilded Age and Progressive Era
• Immigration History

Books:

• The Maya of Morganton : Work and Community in the Nuevo New South (University of North Carolina Press, 2003)
• Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment (Harvard University Press, 1998)
• Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform [Co-editor with Stephen T. Leonard and Donald M. Reid], (Cornell University Press, 1996)
• In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture (University of Illinois Press, 1994)
• Major Problems in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (D.C. Heath, l993)
• Co-author, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: The History of Hospital Workers` Union, Local 1199 (University of Illinois Press, 1989)
• Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (University of Illinois Press, 1983)

Scholarly Articles:

• "Making Textbooks Worthwhile," Chronicle of Higher Education vol. 52, Sept. 16, 2005, Section B, 12.
• "What Is To Be Done-In Labor History?" Labor History, 43 (Nov. 2002) 419-25.
• "Hey Prof., Watch That Teacher!: The Unacknowledged Side of Professional Collaboration," AHA Perspectives (October, 2002), 24-26.
• "Getting Lost-and Getting Home in History," AHA Perspectives (November 2001), 22-25.
• "New Tidings for History Education, or Lessons We Should Have Learned by Now," History Teacher 34 (February 2001), 235-42.
• "The Maya of Morganton: Exploring Worker Identity Within the Global Marketplace," in James Loucky and Marilyn M. Moors, The Maya Diaspora: Guatemalan Roots, American Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000).
• "Pages from an Organizer's Life: Don McKee Confronts Southern Millworkers-and Himself," (edited) Labor History 41 (winter 2000), 453-464.
• Review Essay: "Losing the Hearts and Minds, or How Clio Disappeared from Canadian Public Schools," Labour/Le Travail 43 (Spring 1999), 211-15.
• "From Autonomy to Abundance: Changing Beliefs About the Free Labor System in Nineteenth Century America" in Stanley L. Engerman, ed., Terms of Labor: Slavery, Freedom, and Free Labor (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 116-36.
• "Early Labor Studies and the Dual Search for Legitimacy," in Labor Law Journal 49( Sept. 1998), 1151-56.
• "American Labor History," revised and expanded edition in the AHA, "The New American History" pamphlet series, AHA Publications, 1997.
• "A New Language for Labour? W. Jett Lauck and the American Version of Social Democracy," in John Belchem and Neville Kirk, eds., Languages of Labour (England: Ashgate Publishing, 1997), 153-85.
• co-author, "The Future of the International Labour Question from the Inside Looking Out," Labour/Le Travail, 37 (Spring 1996), 221-31.
• "'Italian Connection': l'incontro di uno storico americano con la teoria politica" [The Italian Connection: An American Historian's Encounter with Political Theory] in Daniele Fiorentino, ed., La storia americana e le scienze sociali in Europe e negli Stati Uniti [Amerian History and Social Science in Europe and the United States] (Rome: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1996), 109-18.
• "'Italian Connection': l'incontro di uno storico americano con la teoria politica" [The Italian Connection: An American Historian's Encounter with Political Theory] in Daniele Fiorentino, ed., La storia americana e le scienze sociali in Europe e negli Stati Uniti [Amerian History and Social Science in Europe and the United States] (Rome: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1996), 109-18.
• "Expert Advice: Progressive Intellectuals and the Unraveling of Labor Reform, 1912-1915," in Fink, et. al. Intellectuals and Public Life, 182-213.
• "Have We Been Here Before? Prospects for a Future for American Unionism," in Proceedings of the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting, Industrial Relations Research Association Series, 1994, pp. 129-35.
• "U.S. Workers and the Free Trade Agreement: Some Historical Caveats" [published in Spanish] in Gustavo Vega Canovas, ed., Liberacion Economica y Libre Comercio en America del Norte (El Colegio de Mexico, l993).
• "The Forward March of Labour Started? Building a Politicized Class Culture in West Ham, l898-l900," in John Rule and Robert Malcolmson, eds., Protest and Survival: Essays for Edward Thompson (Merlin Press, l993), 279-320.
• "Culture's Last Stand? Gender and the Search for Synthesis in American Labor History," Labor History 34 (Spring-Summer, l993), 178-89.
• Review Essay: "Clearing It Up With Sidney: A New Labor-Political Synthesis For the Twentieth Century" (Review of Steven Fraser, Labor Will Rule), Reviews in American History 20 (l992), 366-71.
• Review Essay: "The Undoing of the Intellectuals," (Review of Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science), Radical History Review 33 (l992), 115-21.
• "A Memoir of Selig Perlman and His Life at the University of Wisconsin: Based on an Interview of Mark Perlman," Labor History 32 (Fall l991), 503-525.
• "`Intellectuals' vs. `Workers': Academic Requirements and the Creation of Labor History," and AHR Forum exchange with Ellen Fitzpatrick, American Historical Review 96 (April l991), 395-431.
• "American Labor History," in Eric Foner, ed., The New American History (Temple University Press, 1990), 233-50.
• "Looking Backwards: Reflections on Workers' Culture and the Conceptual Dilemmas of the New Labor History," in Alice Kessler-Harris and J. Carroll Moody, eds., Perspectives on American Labor History: The Problem of Synthesis, (DeKalb, l989), 5-29 .
• "Was the American Labor Movement Radical?" in Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle, eds., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in American History (Guilford, Ct., l989), 46-57.
• "John R. Commons, Herbert Gutman, and the Burden of Labor History," Labor History 29, (summer, l988), 313-22.
• "The New Labor History and the Powers of Historical Pessimism: Consensus, Hegemony, and the Case of the Knights of Labor" and "Relocating the Vital Center" (response to critics) Journal of American History 75 (June 1988), pp. 115-36, 158-161.
• "Working-Class Radicalism in the Gilded Age," in Allen F. Davis and Harold D. Woodman, eds. Conflict and Consensus in American History (Lexington, Mass., 1988), pp. 165-76.
• "Labor, Liberty, and the Law: Trade Unionism and the Problem of the American Constitutional Order," Journal of American History, 74 (December, 1987), pp. 904-25.
• "Politics As Social History, A Case Study of Class Conflict and Political Development in Nineteenth-Century New England," in Herbert G. Gutman and Donald H. Bell, Eds., The New England Working Class and The New Labor History, (Urbana, 1987) pp. 251-269; re-printed from Social History, 7 (January 1982), pp. 43-58.
• "Herbert G. Gutman" (with Susan Levine), Labour/Le Travail 16 (Fall, l985), pp. 12-15.
• "The Uses of Politics: Towards a Theory of the Labor Movement in the Era of the Knights of Labor," in Michael Frisch and Daniel Walkowitz, ed., Working-Class America, Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society, (University of Illinois, 1983), pp. 104-122.
• "Industrial America's Rank and File: Recent Trends in American Labor History," in Teaching American History: New Directions, Matthew T. Downey, ed., (The National Council for the Social Studies, Bulletin No. 67, 1982), pp. 43-58. Reprinted in Social Education (February 1982), pp. 92-99.
• "Irrespective of Party, Color or Social Standing: The Knights of Labor and Opposition Politics in Richmond, Virginia," Labor History, 19 (Summer, 1978), pp. 325-49. Expanded version reprinted in The Southern Common People, Edward Magdol and Jon L. Wakelyn, eds. (Greenwood Press 1980), pp. 289-312.
• "Organizing Montefiore: Labor Militancy Meets a Progressive Health Empire," co-authored with Brian Greenberg) in Health Care in America: Essays in Social History, Reverby and Rosner, eds. (Temple University Press, 1979), pp. 226-44.
• "Class Conflict in the Gilded Age: The Figure and the Phantom," Radical History Review, 3 (Fall-Winter, 1975), pp. 56-73. University of Illinois Press, 1983).

Journalism:

• "Labor's Dubious Distinction Awards," for "Roundtable: Turmoil in the AFL-CIO" Dollars&Sense (Sept.-Oct., 2005).
• "The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Harvard," CHE, April 1, 2005.
• "For a Hard Worker in N.C., Deportation," Raleigh, N.C., News and Observer, Dec. 12, 2004.
• "Hey, Prof, Watch that Teacher! The Unacknowledged Side of Professional Collaboration," AHA Perspectives (October 2002), 2426.
• Not the Way to Boost Faculty Pay," op.ed. Raleigh News and Observer, Oct. 27, 1999.
• "A Hand Up for N.C.'s New Workforce," op. ed., Raleigh News and Observer, June 20, 1999.
• "Intellectual Climate: Are We Too Cool to Care?" op. ed. UNC Daily Tar Heel, Oct. 10, 1997.
• "Perfect Fit? UNC and Nike's Marketing Plan," op. ed. Raleigh News and Observer, August 27, 1997.
• Raleigh "Lean and Mean Wages for UNC Workers?" op. ed., Raleigh News and Observer, May 16, 1997.
• "Blaming the World for Misogyny Ignores Reality," [on the Greek system and intellectual climate], op ed. UNC Daily Tar Heel, Nov. 17, 1995.
• "'Food for Thought': Aiding Student-Faculty Discourse,",op. ed. UNC Daily Tar Heel, Oct. 16,1995.
• "Jump Start: The Makings of a New Freshman Year," op.ed. UNC Daily Tar Heel, July 20, 1995.
• "UNC's Everlasting Dread of the Legislature," Raleigh News and Observer, op. ed., April 14, l995.
• "Erosion of the Commons: University's Unbuilding," op. ed., UNC Daily Tar Heel, Jan. 25, l995.
• "A New Theme Stirs Old Ghosts," Raleigh News & Observer, op. ed. on Clinton domestic program, Oct. 24, 1993.
• "A New Deal from Hamlet's Ashes?" op.ed., Charlotte Observer, June 24, l992.
• "A New Turn at 1199," Dissent, 33 (Summer 1986), pp. 275-76.
• "Bread and Roses, Crusts and Thorns, The Troubled Story of 1199," Dissent, 33 (Spring, 1986), pp. 179-88.
• "Can the Hospital Workers' Union Recover?" Newsday, May 30, l986.
• "'Turnergate' at 1199," The Nation, 240 (Feb. 23, 1985), pp. 208-10.
• "Blowing the Whistle on 1199 Vote Fraud," In These Times, 9 (Jan. 23-29, l985), pp. 6, 10.
• "Union Power, Soul Power: The Story of 1199B and Labor's Search For a Southern Strategy," Southern Changes, 5 (March-April, 1983), pp. 9-20.

Reviews:

• Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920, AHR 109 (Dec. 2004), 1592-93.
• Larry Tye, Rising From the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 22, 2004.
• "Six Stories of Victory and Defeat for Organized Labor," Chicago Tribune, Sept. 2, 2001.
• James Green, Taking History To Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements in Industrial and Labor Relations Review (Fall 2001), 904-905.
• "Old Heroes for a New Century": Russell Jacoby, The End of Utopia; Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century; Andrew Delbanco, The Real American Dream in Raleigh News and Observer, Oct. 26, 1999.
• Nick Salvatore, "Herbert Gutman's Narrative of the American Working Class: A Reevaluation," in International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 12 (summer 1999), 662-65.
• J. Anthony Lucas, Big Trouble in Raleigh News and Observer, Dec. 7, 1997.
• Daniel J. Clark, Like Night and Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town and Timothy J. Minchin, What Do We Need a Union For? in Raleigh News and Observer, April 27, 1997.
• Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century in Journal of American History (June l995), 271-72.
• Alan Dawley, Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State in Science & Society 57 (Winter l993-94), 489-91.
• Clark D. Halker, For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-95, American Historical Review (June l992), 941-42.
• Gary Gerstle, Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, l914-1960, American Historical Review (June l991), 985.
• Gary Marks, Unions in Politics: Britain, Germany and the United States in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, American Historical Review 96 (February l991), 139.
• Scott G. McNall, The Road to Rebellion: Class Formation and Kansas Populism, 1865-1900, Pacific Historical Review 59 (November l990), 563-65.
• David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, The State, and American Labor Activism, l865-l925, American Historical Review 94 (June l989), 881-82.
• "American Labour's Longue Duree: Class Conflicts (and the Lack of Them) in Cincinnati," [Review Essay] Labour/Le Travail 21 (spring l988), pp. 243-47.
• Film: "1877: The Grand Army of Starvation," Journal of American History 73 (Dec. 1986) pp. 826-27.
• "The Leader as a Man," [Review Essay] Eugene V. Debs, Citizen and Socialist in Dissent (Winter 1984), pp. 130-34.
• E. Richard Brown, Rockefeller Medicine Men, Medicine & Capitalism in America in Labour/Le Travailleur, 8 (1983), pp. 344-47.
• "My Dinner With Aileen," Review of Aileen S. Kraditor, The Radical Persuasion, in The Nation, 236 (June 18, 1983), pp. 770-773.
• Gregory S. Kealey, Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1867-1892 in International Labor and Working Class History, No. 21 (Spring 1982), pp. 148-151.
• John C. Foster, The Union Politic, and Ruth L. Horowitz, Political Ideologies of Organized Labor in Labour/Le Travailleur, 5 (1980), pp. 223-26.
• "Labor in the Cradle of Industrial America," (review essay), International Labor and Working Class History, No. 14-15 (Spring 1979), pp. 16-22.
• Phillip S. Foner, The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 in Ohio History, 88 (Winter 1979), pp. 99-100.
• John A. Garraty, Unemployment in History, in JAH, 67 (June 1979), pp. 104-105.
• James B. Gilbert, Work Without Salvation, America's Intellectuals and Industrial Alienation, 1880-1910 in The Historian, 41 (February, 1979), pp. 386-87.
• Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom in Radical History Review, IV (Spring-Summer 1977), pp. 76-78.
• Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn in In These Times, I (Aug. 31-Sept. 6, l977), pp. 16-17.
• John E. Bodnar, ed., The Ethnic Experience in Pennsylvania in Journal of Ethnic Studies III (Winter 1976), pp. 97-99.
• Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, The Peoples of Philadelphia, 1790-1740 and Joseph A. Ryan, ed., White Ethnics: Life in Working Class America in Journal of Ethnic Studies II (Summer 1974), pp. 92-95.

• UIC Distinguished Professor, 2003--University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2002-2005
• Appointed, AHA representative to board of National Council for History Education, 2000-
• Appointed, National Advisory Board, Society for History Education 1998-date
• Lecture Trip to Japan (8 lectures delivered at four universities--Tokyo University, Yokahama
• City University, Tsuda College, Ritsumeikan University--sponsored by Society for American
• Historical Studies and American Studies Association of Japan), October-November, 1998
• Charles Warren Center Fellow, Harvard University, 1998-99
• Elected, Vice President of Teaching Division, AHA, 1998-2001
• Appointed, Merle Curti Prize Committee, OAH, 1998-2000
• Appointed, OAH Television Advisory Committee, spring 1997
• Council Member, Society for the History of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1995-98
• Kenan Leave Fellowship, Fall l995, UNC-Chapel Hill
• Arts and Humanities Fellowship, Spring 1996
• Zachary Smith Professorship, l995-98
• Arts and Humanities Fellowship, Summer l993 (and faculty mentor for MURAP program for minority students preparing for graduate-level research), $3000
• National Humanities Center Fellow, l990-91, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

2000-	Professor, Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago
1995-1997	Zachary Smith Professor, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1990-2000	Professor, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1985-1990	Associate Professor, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1983-1984	Senior Fulbright Lecturer, Amerika-Institut, University of Munich, West Germany
1972-1974	Lecturer, Department of History, City College of New York
Courses taught: (Undergrad) America to 1865; American Since 1865; U.S. Social History; U.S. Cultural History; The Worker in American Life; Communities in Transition: The Local Impact of the Industrial Revolution; History of American Radicalism; Rise of the Expert, A Critical History of the Professions; Rise of Consumer Culture; The Americas, A Survey of the Forces Shaping the Hemisphere (Pilot course for the Duke-UNC Program in Hemispheric Studies); The Gilded Age and Progressive Era; Five Hundred Years Without Solitude: History of the Guatemalan Maya; Director of Senior Honors Program; (Graduate) U.S. Labor History, Comparative Labor History, Europe and the U.S., 1800-1914; Intellectuals and Social Action, Twentieth-Century Colloquium in U.S. History; History of the Social Disciplines (Graduate course for Curriculum in Social Theory and Cross-Cultural Studies); Occupational History and Folklore; Labor Migration and Worker Mobilization in the Americas; Labor Migration and the Roots of the Global Marketplace.

"Sweatshops at Sea: Revisiting the Seamen's Act of 1915," keynote address, Annual American Studies Symposium, Purdue University, March 4, 2005

"Sweatshops at Sea: The Seamen's Act of 1915 as an Experiment in Trans-National Labor Regulation," Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, Nov. 18-21, 2004

"Globalization, American Workers, and the World's Two Gilded Ages," Depts of Political Science and History, Purdue University-Calumet, Nov. 11, 2004

Commentator, "Law, Labor, and American State Formation" panel, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, May 29, 2004, Chicago

"Latino/a Workers in the U.S." roundtable, 21st Annual Latin American Labor History Conference, Duke University, April 30-May 1, 2004

Chair and Commentator, "The Labor of Empire: Politics and Power in the Construction of the Panama Canal," 25th Annual North American Labor History Conference, Wayne State University, Oct. 16-18, 2003

"Community's Siren Song: The Politics of Memory in a Southern Milltown," Beyond Structure and Agency LAS Faculty Seminar, University of Illinois at Chicago, Oct. 13, 2003

Round-Table, "Beyond the Examined Life: A Roundtable on New Directions in Biography," UIC History Graduate Student Society, Institute for the Humanities, March 26, 2003

Chair, "United States Socialism in the Twentieth Century," Missouri Valley History Conference, March 6-8, 2003

Chair, "Modern American Representations," UIC Graduate Student Conference, Feb. 27-28, 2003

"The Wizardry of American History," Keynote speech, Presenting the Past," Indiana Council for History Education, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Feb. 7, 2003

"The Maya of Morganton," UIC History Department Brown Bag Talk, Jan. 22, 2003

"What Is To Be Done--in Labor History?" History Department Colloquium Series, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oct. 2, 2002

Commentator, "Rethinking Working-Class History: New Perspectives," 24th Annual North American Labor History Conference, Wayne State University, Oct. 17-19, 2002.

Round-Table, "Publishing Labor History," Writing Canadian Labour: Critical Perspectives Conference, Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, May 31-June 2, 2002 "The Mayan Image in the Morganton (North Carolina) Mind," Chicago Urban History Seminar lecture, Chicago Historical Society, Jan. 17, 2002

"The Death of the Textbook?" Chair/commentator, AHA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Jan. 3-6, 2002

"Writing Life and Work: Biography and the Uses of Labor History," commentator, Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Nov. 15-18, 2001

"Flight of the 'Happy Farmers': Inside the Immigrant Worker's Struggle" Newberry Labor History Seminar, Chicago, Nov. 9, 2001

"Class and Labor Markets," panelist, Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity Conference, UIC Sociology Department, Oct. 26, 2001

"Agro-Industry, Transnational Migration, and the Transformation of Class in the US," Chair/commentator, 23rd Annual North American Labor History Conference, Detroit, Oct. 18-20, 2001

"Transborder Peoples in Economies and Labor Flows," panelist, Latino and Latin American Studies Workshop, Indiana University, June 1-2, 2001

"Community Without Country: Maya Poultry Workers in North Carolina," OAH Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, April 26-29, 2001

"How the Dead Organized the Living: Guatemalan Maya Workers in North Carolina," (Keynote Address), Missouri Valley Historical Association, Omaha, March 9, 2001

"New Tidings For History Education, Or Lessons We Should Have Learned By Now," Annual Meeting of the Organization of History Teachers, Boston, Jan. 5, 2001

"Community Without Country: The Puzzle of Identity Among Mayan Workers in North Carolina," 22nd Annual North American Labor History Conference, Detroit, Oct. 21, 2000

The Maya of Morganton, North Carolina: Exploring Worker Identity Within the Global Marketplace,” Keynote address, Southern Labor Studies Conference, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Sept. 30-Oct. 2, 1999

“Tapping the Wizardry of American History,” Keynote address at Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Education, Long Beach, California, Jan. 29, 1999

“The Mayans of Morganton: Exploring Worker Identity Within the Global Marketplace,” Annual Meeting of the OAH, Indianapolis, April 2-5, 1998

Lecture: “Liberation or Social Control? Worker Education and the Puzzle of the Progressive Intellectual,” Yale University History Department, Jan. 22, 1998

“Early Labor Studies and the Dual Search for Legitimacy,” Annual Meeting, Industrial Relations Research Association, Chicago, Jan.3-5, 1998

Chair and Comment: Labor and Third Party Politics in the Populist Era: A Regional Perspective, Nineteenth Annual North American Labor History Conference, Wayne State University, Oct. 23-25, 1997

Chair and Comment: Teaching Labor History Roundtable, Southern Labor Studies Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, Sept. 26-28, 1997

Comment: Colombian Labor History and Political Culture, Fourteenth Annual Latin American Labor History Conference, Duke University, May 2-3, 1997

Comment: “Expanding Citizenship Through Testimony: The National Consumers’ League and Working Women in the 1920s and 1930s,” 90th Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians,San Francisco,April 19, 1997

Comment: “The Many-Headed Hydra in the Seventeenth Century Atlantic,” (paper presented by Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh), Symposium on International Migration, Center for International Studies,Duke University, April 11, 1997

“Robert H. Wiebe’s The Search for Order: A Thirty Year Retrospective,” AHA Annual Meeting, Jan. 3, 1997, New York City

“Free to Do What? Changing Beliefs Towards the Free Labor System in Nineteenth Century America,” The Terms of Labor: Slavery, Serfdom, and Free Labor Conference, Washington University, St. Louis, Oct. 24-27, 1996

"A New Language for Labour?: W. Jett Lauck and the American Version of Social Democracy," Society for the Study of Labour History, Manchester, England, April 27, 1996

Chair/commentator, "Multi-National Capital, Trans-National

Labor?" IX Southern Labor Studies Conference, University of Texas at Austin, Oct. 26-29, l995

"Tapping the Wizardry of American History," Keynote Address, 3lst Annual ECU Symposium on History and the Social Studies, East Carolina University, Sept. 22, l995

“The Fearsome Public: Democratic Disenchantment and the Advance of Learning,” Culture and Democracy Conference, Reynolda House Museum of Modern Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, April 22, l995

Chair/commentator, “The European Left and the Allure of American History During the Cold War,” Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Washington D.C., March 30-April 2, l995

Moderator, Labor History Network, Annual Social Science History Meeting, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 13-16, l994

Conference Co-Organizer, "Lessons of Work: New Approaches to the Study of Occupational Culture, Sept. 23-24, l994, UNC-Chapel Hill

"Pictures at an Exhibition: The Future of the Labor Question as Viewed at the Annual Conference of the International Labor Organization," Conference on Labor, Free Trade and Economic Integration in the Americas, Duke University, Aug. 25-27, l994.

"Labor at the Border: A Report Back from Matamoros," Forum sponsored by the Working Group on Labor and Free Trade in the Americas, Duke-UNC Program in Latin American Studies, UNC campus, Dec. 6, l993.

"A Philip Randolph: The New Negro and the Cult of Leadership" Southern Labor Studies Conference, Birmingham, Alabama, Oct. 21-24, l993.

"The Italian Connection: An American Historian's Encounter with Political Theory," International seminar on American History and the Social Sciences, co-sponsored by USIS and the Encyclopedia Italiana, Rome, Italy, Oct. 6-9, l993.

"Nueves Direcciones en la Estudia de los Trabajadores," Public Symposium on Mexican Labor History, sponsored by Centro de Investigacion Multidisciplinaria de Tamaulipas, October 1-2, l993.

"Latin American History in Comparative Perspective," Roundtable presentation, Tenth Annual Latin American Labor History Conference, Duke University, April 23-24, 1993.

"From Hoffa to NAFTA: The Roots of Labor's Crisis," Phi Alpha Theta Lecture, East Carolina University, Feb. 5, l993.

Conference organizer, "Seeing the World Whole: The Past and Present of the Social Disciplines," sponsored by the UNC Program in Social Theory and Cross-Cultural Studies, December l992.

"Culture's Next Stand: Gender and the Search for Synthesis in American Labor History," Plenary Session, North American Labor History Conference, Detroit, October 17-19, l991,

Panelist, "Workshop: Labor Recruitment and Factory Labor: The International Context," Southern Labor Studies Conference, Atlanta, October 10-13, l991.

“U.S. Workers and a Free Trade Agreement: Some Historical Caveats,” Workshop on the Implications of a North American Free Trade Agreement, Centro de Estudios Internacionales, El Colegio de Mexico, Feb. l991

Commentator, "African-American Workers in Richmond," Papers by Peter Rachleff and Suzanne Schnittman. Southern Historical Association, New Orleans, Nov. 1-3, l990.

Commentator, "American Labor Law History," Papers by William A. Forbath, Amy Dru Stanley, and Robert J. Steinfeld. American Society for Legal History, Chicago, October 19-20, l990.

"The Creation of Labor History: A Situational Approach to the Wisconsin School of Labor Economics," Annual meeting of the OAH, Washington D.C, March 23-25, l990.

"'Intellectuals vs. Workers': The Wisconsin School and the Creation of Labor History," Perspectives on Labor History Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, March 9-10, l990.

"Race, Gender, and Unions in Hospitals and Health Care Occupations," Duke University Comparative Labor Studies Forum, Nov. 17, l989.

"The Ecstacy and the Agony of New York City's Hospital Workers," Brown Bag Lunch Series, Center for Labor-Management Policy Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Feb. 15,l989.

Commentator, The Future of the European Left Conference, Duke University, January 20, l989.

Commentator, "Class, Gender and Reform in Southern Textile Communities," (Papers by Marion Roydhouse and LeeAnn Whites), Annual Meeting, Southern Historical Association, New Orleans, 1987.

"Labor, Liberty and the Law," in the Shadow of the Statue of Liberty Conference, Paris, France, October 1986; Constitutionalism and American Life Symposium, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 1986.

"Class and the Nature of Late 19th Century U.S. Politics," Commentator on papers by Shelton Stromquist, Richard Schneirov and Richard Oestreicher, OAH Annual Meeting, New York City, April 1986.

Commentator, "Intellectuals and the Labor Question," (paper by George M. Fredrickson), AHA Annual Meeting, New York City, 1985.

"Ideology and the Concept of Class," Conference on Modernization sponsored by Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, Airlie, Virginia, July 7-10, l985.

"Gramsci and the Gilded Age:Power, Culture, and the Limits of Consent," U.S. Working Class History and Contemporary Labor Movement Symposium, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Oct. 23-25, 1985.

Panelist, Knights of Labor in Canada and the United States:A Discussion of Dreaming of What might Be and Workingmen's Democracy:The Knights of Labor and American Politics, Social Science History Association, Ninth Annual Meeting.Oct. 25-28, 1984, Toronto, Ontario.

"Looking Backward:Reflections on Workers' Culture & The Conceptual Dilemmas of the New Labor History," Research Conference on the Future of American Labor History, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Oct. 10-12, 1984.

"The Vanishing Proletariat:Recent Views of Working-Class Culture," International Conference on Critical Thoughts of Society and Culture in the U.S. and West Germany since the 1960s, Center for North American Studies and Research, Univ. of Frankfurt (Main) June 18-23, 1984.

"America's Labor Unions:Current Dilemmas and Future Prospects," John E. Kennedy Institute, Free University of Berlin, June 16, 1984.

"The Labor Movement in the Gilded Age," University of Paris (Creteil), April 14, 1984.

"Business Values and Work Ethics:Struggle for the Cultural High Ground" seminar on American Managerial Culture, Center for American Studies, Rome, Italy, March 5-9, 1984.

"Bullets and Ballots:Worker Mobilization and the Path to Municipal Socialism, Milwaukee, Wisconsin," Paper, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?Conference, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, May 25-27, 1983.

"Labor Systems and the State," Moderator-commentator, Seventh Annual Political Economy of the World System Conference, Center for International Studies, Duke University, March 30-April 1, 1983.

"1199B Hospital Workers Union," Conference on the History of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina, Avery Institute, Charleston, 1982.

"Union Power, Soul Power:1199B and the Magnolia Curtain," Fourth Southern Labor Studies Conference, Atlanta, Georgia 1982.

"Working-Class Radicalism in the Gilded Age:Some Problems of Interpretation," Chicago Project Conference, Newberry Library, Chicago, 1981.

"Working Class Culture and Ideology," Commentator at OAH Annual Meeting, Detroit, 1981.

"The Uses of Political Power:Towards a Theory of the Labor Movement in the Era of the Knights of Labor," Knights of Labor Centennial Symposium, Newberry Library, Chicago 1979.

"Paternalism and the Factory System," Commentator at OAH Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 1979.

"Politics as Labor History:Labor Organization, Town Meeting, and Political Partisanship in 19th Century New England," Smith College Symposium on New England Social History, 1979.

"The Knights of Labor and the Transformation of American Politics," Canadian Historical Association Annual Conference, London, Ontario, 1978.

"The Old Labor History and the New," commentator, (paper by David Brody), OAH Annual Meeting, New York City, 1978.

"Labor History and the Unions," Panelist, New York State Labor History Association, New York City, 1977.

"Workingmen's Democracy and the Yankee Democracy," Rhode Island History Forum, Providence, 1977.

"The Making of a Union in the Voluntary Hospitals," (co-authored with Brian Greenberg), Southwest Labor Studies Conference, Tempe, Arizona, 1977.

"Black Migration and the Great Transformation:An Oral History of Southern Black and West Indian Workers in New York City," New England Oral History Association, 1976.

"Legacy of an Eight-Hour Movement:German, Poles, and the Origins of Municipal Socialism in Milwaukee,"Columbia University Seminar on Working-Class Studies, New York City, 1976.

"Talking About Work: Labor, Organizing, and Race in North Carolina," Forum at Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Feb. 11, 1998

"Going Global: American Business in a Borderless World," UNC Program in the Humanities, July 25, 1997

"Oral History and the Memory of the Working Class" presentation to UNC-CH Summer Institutue in the Humanities: Memory and History in Southern Culture, July 16, 1996

"Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous: Incorporating Working People into the U.S. History Survey," Presentation to North Carolina State Social Studies Association, Feb. 22-23, 1996

Consultant, "Hamlet--Out of the Ashes," documentary film funded through NC Humanities Council, l993-94

National Park Service. Creation of New Historical Thematic Framework. Summer l993

National Park Service. Labor History Theme Park Project. Summer l992

Expert testimony, Legislative Research Commission on Fire and Occupational Safety at Industrial and Commercial Facilities, Feb. 24, l992, Hamlet, N.C.

Consultant, "The Rise and Fall of the Roebling Empire," documentary film by Past Perspectives, application pending at NEH, l994

Consultant, "Radical Reformer--The Life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman," Diane Hendrix Film and Video Production, script submitted to NEH, l992

Consultant, "The Working People of Richmond," Valentine Museum exhibit, Gregg Kimball curator, Richmond, Virginia, l991-92

"Putting the Hamlet Tragedy in Historical Perspective," Hamlet Response Coalition Conference, Raleigh, October 9, l992

Advisor, 1934 General Textile Strike Film Project, l986-88

"Present Dilemmas and Future Prospects," Labor Leadership Seminar, sponsored by International Union of Operating Engineers, Durham, May l983

Consultant, American Working Class History Project (for community colleges, labor education), New York City, l982-83

Coordinator, "Sunbelt Challenge" conference on future social and economic policy choices for the region, Feb. l982

"The Plight of the Unions," address to state convention of the Communication Workers of America, Asheville, l981

Moderator, Four programs on Piedmont industrialization, sponsored by NC Office of Folklife Programs, l980-81

Participant, International Miners' Conference, Highlander Educational Center, Highlander, Tennessee, l979

Consultant, THREADS Project, NEH-funded educational program for textile workers in Erwin, N.C., l978-79