Hexbears. I need your help. I have a term paper that I need a topic for. Here’s the rub: It’s for US history, and the topic has to be US history before 1893. I wanted to write about labor unions, which took off in the US around the 1870s, but the real “history” of organized labor in the US takes place well past 1893. So the professor will very likely reject that.
I’m not a history person. I know, I know “those who don’t learn from the past…” I don’t want to write about the American civil war and all that shit though. It’s been done to death. Any ideas on a topic I could pick that would be more interesting and more left-leaning?
Not asking for any help writing it. I just need some help picking a topic that would be interesting to research.
Wdym the “real history” takes place after 1893? Half a million workers, nearly ten percent of the US population at the time, went on strike in 1886 demanding the eight hour workday. Some estimates say the Knights of Labor alone counted 20% of blue collar workers as their members. The late nineteenth century labor movement is only rivaled by the peak of the twentieth century labor movement. There’s a substantial history of industrial struggle and worker organizing dating back centuries in the US. It’s not as well documented or state sanctioned as twentieth century union activity, but it most certainly happened.
If you wanted to write an interesting paper, exploring why people think labor history started in the twentieth century and the effects of that would be interesting but maybe too broad. There are plenty of individual events, people, struggles, and perspectives in pre-1893 labor history you could focus on though.
Not my requirement. The professor stated that anything after 1893 is not part of the course and cannot be included in the term paper. Kinda bullshit, but it is what it is. I mean fuck man, so it started in the 1870s but went well past that, so I can’t cover it? That’s kind of bullshit.
I definitely agree. the Knights of Labor were huge. But I don’t have a lot of data on pre- Knights of Labor. Also it’s just a pre-req course. I’m not looking to make a masterpiece. XD