UW professor and undergraduates research radical labor union (IWW)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_3029f084-0036-11e5-b5b3-4fab30b2c855.html

Katie Anastas

During the past year, UW history professor James Gregory has been researching the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical labor union founded in 1905. This research is part of Gregory’s larger project called the Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Project, which he started in 2007.

With the help of undergraduate researchers, Gregory has assembled an impressive database of information about the IWW and its impact on labor rights throughout the United States.

“Ever since [the IWW] started, it attracted attention with its daring tactics and reckless forms of organizing,” Gregory said. “The selflessness and recklessness of the organization [are] awe-inspiring.”

The IWW Research Project developed from an assignment in one of Gregory’s classes called “Class, Labor, and American Capitalism.” Students were asked to create yearbooks tracking people and events related to the IWW. Gregory quickly discovered the project’s potential, and Becca Flores, a senior who was a student in the class, began editing essays and assembling databases for the project the following summer.

FULL story at link.

Reach reporter Katie Anastas
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Twitter: @KatieAnastas