by Helen Ramirez – OdellHelen Ramirez – Odell school nurse with the City of Chicago Public Schools for over 34 years, has written a book containing 86 stories, brief and extended, based on interviews of Chicago school nurses, going back to the beginning of the program in 1951.
Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton MD
Copyright 1943, Northeastern University Press, Reprinted 1985 and Miller Press (November 4, 2008)
Picture yourself being slowly poisoned to death at work. It was common in many dangerous trades at the turn of the twentieth century, the risk of taking an industrial job. There were no laws to protect workers in factories, no OSHA, no workers’ compensation. Dr. Alice Hamilton wanted to take on the problem of industrial poisoning. When Alice Hamilton began her work in the new field of industrial toxicology, few worried about chemical hazards at work. Many victims were recent immigrants afraid to complain. Most did not know the risks. “The poor must take dangerous jobs, or have no jobs at all,” she wrote.
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A book of photographs and interviews, which started out as a collection of first-person narratives passed around by hand during the three-year struggle called the Harvard Living Wage Campaign between Harvard University and its employees who clean up, wash dishes. cook, and do security guard duty.
by RUTH NEEDLEMAN
Dear Friends,
After all these years of work, I really did finish my book and it hit the warehouse last Friday! I am having a special event on April 25, 2003 on the IUN campus to celebrate. There will be a reception at 6pm outside the Savannah auditorium with food, to honor the freedom fighters I have written about. The USWA District 7 is a co-sponser. I will, of course, be signing books if anyone wants a signed copy. The real fighters will also be there to sign. Then at 7pm in the auditorium Fill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum, former assistant to John J Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, will be the keynote speaker on the Black Freedom Struggle today.
In solidarity,
Ruth Needleman
Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law
By Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler Doubleday; ISBN: 0385496125; (June 18, 2002)
This is the story of a small group of women iron miners who took on a Minnesota mining company in a landmark civil suit: Jensen vs. Eveleth Mines. In 1975, Lois Jenson became one of the first women to work in the iron mines of Minnesota and she later became the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Eveleth Mines. Jenson and other women miners underwent twenty-five years of harsh and cruel abuse. They received equally brutal treatment in the federal court system. Eveleth’s lawyers made a full assault on Jenson’s character during a deposition that inquired about the most personal details of her life. The plaintiffs pay in emotional pain despite the success of the lawsuit. The book shows the dangers and rewards of taking on a powerful institution through the justice system.
Joan Morris
Florence Scala was born and raised on Taylor Street on the Near West Side of Chicago, but no life story begins and ends with a particular person and his or her period. Carolyn Eastwood splendidly follows this principle, starting with a neighborhood map and ending with a bibliography. In between are the oral histories of Harold Fox, whose grandparents immigrated to the Jewish Neighborhood; Florence Scala, who was born in Chicago shortly after her parents immigrated from Italy; Nate Duncan, whose family migrated to the Black Bottom; and Hilda Portillo, born in Mexico. All discuss their immigrant roots and Chicago neighborhoods, in addition to their personal stories.
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The Heat: Steelworker Lives & Legends
Harmon Lisnow of the Institute for Career Development (ICD) at Merrillville, Ind.
poet author Jimmy Santiago Baca, edited with Stacy James and published in October 2001
Labor Pains: Inside America’s New Union MovementErem has worked in the union movement for the past dozen years as an organizer, a union rep, and a communications director. Her book is an account of the struggle to re-build a vibrant and powerful trade union movement. She examines conflicting demands of race, class, and gender and, while never underestimating the obstacles, she makes a powerful and passionate case for organizing the disorganized and empowering the powerless.
Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action for the Feminist Movement
By Ann Russo
This book examines the ongoing threat and reality of violence in its many forms and how that violence distorts and disfigures women’s lives.
… Sue Straus
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In AmericaEhrenreich in this book calls attention to the millions of Americans working full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In her research, Ehrenreich took minimum-wage jobs in 1998 (inspired by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform promising that any job was a ticket to a better life) in three cities to see if survival was possible. Her first-hand investigation and discouraging findings have caught the attention of the media and finally brought national attention to the plight of the working poor.