Our clerk, Brian, was unable to commute to our previous location, so he suggested we move the library to his Newport Beach office. Everyone say, "Thank you, Brian!"
New Address: 610 Newport Center Drive, CA 92660
Our hours of operation will remain the same. We are open daily from 8 AM to 8 PM.
Image Source: Me on Canva
Phone: 714-123-4567
Email: socallaborlibrary@lib.org
Welcome to the Library of Alexandra. We look forward to sharing our collections and services with all of our community members!
(Source: https://www.villagepreservation.org/2017/11/21/november-29-1909-a-frail-23-year-old-woman-ignites-the-strike-of-the-20000-at-cooper-union/)
The Labor Library of Southern California works to advance workers' rights and preserve labor-related history. We strive to support and serve students, activists, union workers, and all members of our community by giving them free and equitable access to our vast collection of research and records. Through our diverse collections and programs, we aim to create an environment that inspires and empowers our community members to fight for fair labor practices and better working conditions.
From the carpenter's union in colonial Philadelphia to the strike in 2007 by Chinese restaurant delivery men in New York City, the history of how brave working people struggled to gain fair wages, reasonable hours, and secure lives by forming labor unions is a powerful American story filled with drama and intrigue.
National Book Critics Circle Award FinalistWinner of the California Book AwardA searching portrait of an iconic figure long shrouded in myth by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of an acclaimed history of Chavez's movement.Cesar Chavez founded a labor union, launched a movement, and inspired a generation. He rose from migrant worker to national icon, becoming one of the great charismatic leaders of the 20th century. Two decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant Latino leader in US history. Yet his life story has been told only in hagiography--until now. In the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, Miriam Pawel offers a searching yet empathetic portrayal. Chavez emerges here as a visionary figure with tragic flaws; a brilliant strategist who sometimes stumbled; and a canny, streetwise organizer whose pragmatism was often at odds with his elusive, soaring dreams. He was an experimental thinker with eclectic passions--an avid, self-educated historian and a disciple of Gandhian non-violent protest. Drawing on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, this superbly written life deepens our understanding of one of Chavez's most salient qualities: his profound humanity. Pawel traces Chavez's remarkable career as he conceived strategies that empowered the poor and vanquished California's powerful agriculture industry, and his later shift from inspirational leadership to a cult of personality, with tragic consequences for the union he had built. The Crusades of Cesar Chavez reveals how this most unlikely American hero ignited one of the great social movements of our time.
From an award-winning historian, a stirring (and timely) narrative history of American labor from the dawn of the industrial age to the present day. From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Philip Dray's ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. There Is Power in a Union is an epic, character-driven narrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity in all its various settings: on picket lines and in union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House. The author demonstrates, viscerally and dramatically, the urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy--a struggle that remains especially urgent today, when ordinary Americans are so anxious and beset by economic woes.
Carlitos' mother is a janitor. Every night, he sleeps while his mother cleans in one of the skyscrapers in downtown L.A. When she comes home, she waves Carlitos off to school before she goes to sleep. One night, his mamá explains that she can't make enough money to support him and his abuelita the way they need unless she makes more money as a janitor. She and the other janitors have decided to go on strike. Will he support her and help her all he can? Of course, Carlitos wants to help but he cannot think of a way until his teacher, Miss Lopez, explains in class how her own grandfather had fought for better wages for farmworkers when he first came to the United States. Finally, Carlitos knows how he can show his mamá how proud he is of her. He and the other children in his class make posters and Carlitos joins the marchers with a very special sign for his mom! ¡Sí, Se Puede! is a Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book, a Skipping Stones Honor Book, as well as a selection for The Best of Beyond Difference, a recommended list of the top 10 diversity books published in 2002. Diana Cohn, the author, is a social activist. As an elementary teacher, she discovered there were few books for children that discussed social issues, so she began to write as an avocation. She now works as Program Director for the Solidago Foundation, a foundation that supports communities working for economic and environmental justice. She lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California. Francisco Delgado, the illustrator, grew up in Juárez, Chihuahua, but completed high school in El Paso, Texas. He will -receive his MFA at Yale in Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking in May 2002. Francisco is becoming known nationally for his political paintings that satirize U.S. icons blind to the mestizo and immigrant communities of Mexico. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.Luis J. Rodriguez(Always Running) adds the afterword and a poem. La mamá de Carlitos es conserje. Cada noche mientras el duerme su mamá limpia un edificio en el centro de L.A. Una noche su mamá le explica que al menos de que ganara mas como conserje, no gana suficiente dinero para mantenerlo a el y a su abuelita como ella quisiera. Ella y los otros conserjes han decidido entrar en huelga. ¿Acaso el la apoyará y ayudará en todo lo que pueda? Claro, Carlitos quiere ayudar, pero no sabe como hasta que ve a su mamá en la televisión dando un discurso enfavor de la huelga. Al fina, Carlitos encuentra la manera de enseñarle a su mamá lo orgulloso que esta de ella. ¡El y su compañeros de clase hacen carteles y Carlitos se une a la marcha con un cartel muy especial para su mamá! ¡Si, se puede! Incluye un ensayo escrito por el aclamado autor Luis J. Rodríguez sobre Dolores Sánchez, una de las mujeres involucradas el Paro de Conserjes de L.A. El libro también incluye un póster con un poema de Rodríguez e información sobre las uniones dirigido a los grados 4-6.
A stirring biography of a hero in the struggle for economic justice and a book that probes the question: Whatever happened to labor liberalism in America?Excellent . . . gripping. . . . Mr. Lichtenstein has produced more than a biography. He has given us an elegantly written and unfailingly intelligent portrait of American labor in the mid-twentieth century.--Alan Brinkley, New York Times Book Review In an ideal union of scholarship and literature, Nelson Lichtenstein properly places labor leader Walter Reuther in the center of the most important social and political movements of the 20th century. This is an important book.--Julian BondAA meticulously researched, clearly written and quickly paced story . . . a masterful portrayal of the social and political stage on which the labor leader performed. --Washington Post Book World
