I just ordered two copies of Agitate! Educate! Organize!: American Labor Posters by Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher. One copy for my personal library, and one for a dear friend with whom I served on my locals board of directors. Shes still fighting the good fight working for FEA, the Florida Education Association, in DeathSantis-stan.
I left Florida in 2017 when I was offered a sizable bonus to take early retirement. By then, my high school library was used more days for standardized testing than open to students. School Libraries became Media Centers, then MakerSpaces. Said the Superintendent, all students have been issued a Chromebook, we dont need books anymore. He was so wrong.
By 2010, I predicted Floridas school libraries, especially in high schools, would be gone in 10 years. Mine was gone in 7 years. Its devastating, heartbreaking. So Ive maintained my membership in ALA, the American Library Association, working with (YALSA)Young Adult Librarianship Services Association, (AASL), American Association School Libraries, (AJL), the Association of Jewish Libraries, and the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. Ill continue to fight for readers and libraries as long as I live.
You can take the librarian out of the library, but youll never take the library out of me.
🕊thatcrowwoman
From the website:
American labor posters are widely scattered, difficult to locate, and rarely archived. Cushing and Drescher examined several thousand such images in the course their research, guaranteeing a truly representative selection. The presentation of the posters is thematic, with a brief history of activist graphic media followed by chapters on Dignity and Exploitation; Health and Safety; Women; Race and Civil Rights; War, Peace and Internationalism; Solidarity and Organizing; Strikes and Boycotts; Democracy, Voting, and Patriotism; History, Heroes, and Martyrs; and Culture. Along with the stunning color images, the text contributes to a much deeper understanding of the politics, history, artistry, and impact of this genre of activist art and the importance of the labor movement in the transformation of American society over the course of the twentieth century.