Higher Places in the Industrial Machinery?

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-502
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Maloney
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Labor Demand ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Black Labor ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Antidiscrimination Policies

The economic history of African American workers since 1940 has been marked by alternating episodes of progress and stagnation. Sharp gains in relative incomes during the 1940s were followed by little change in this measure in the 1950s. Renewed progress from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s was followed by a new period of stagnation and even decline in relative pay in the 1980s and early 1990s. The important episodes of progress were to a great degree driven by changes on the demand side of the labor market: rapid growth in labor demand—especially for blue-collar workers—during WorldWar II and the effect of new antidiscrimination policies on the demand for black labor after 1965 (Donohue and Heckman 1991; Jaynes andWilliams 1989: 294–96).

“Spinnin' the Webb”: Representational Spaces, Mythic Narratives, and the 1937 Webb/Goodman Battle of Music

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-196
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER J. WELLS
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Black Artists ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
At Home

AbstractBenny Goodman and Chick Webb's 1937 battle of music has become a mythic event in jazz historical narratives, enshrined as the unique spectacle that defines Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and its legacy. While this battle has been marked as exceptional and unique, as an event it was a relatively typical instantiation of the “battle of music” format, a presentational genre common in black venues during the 1920s and 1930s. Within African American communities, battles of music re-staged ballrooms as symbolically loaded representational spaces where dueling bands regularly served as oppositional totems that indexed differences of locality (Chicago vs. New York), gender (men vs. women), ethnicity (Anglo- or African American vs. Latin), or race (black vs. white). This article details the ten-year history of battles of music that preceded the Webb/Goodman battle and that made its signifying rhetoric legible within African American communities. It then argues that the disconnect between the battle's relatively typical signifying rhetoric and its subsequent enshrinement as an exceptional event occurred due to a specific confluence of circumstances in the mid-1930s that shaped its immediate reception and subsequent legacy: Goodman's emergence as the “King of Swing” during a new period of massive mainstream popularity for swing music, a coterminous vigilance among both white and black jazz writers to credit black artists as jazz's originators and best practitioners, and the emergence of athletes Jesse Owens and Joe Louis as popular black champions symbolically conquering white supremacy at home and abroad.

Apprenticeships and Career Pathways

2020 ◽  
pp. 62-82
Author(s):  
Czesław Noworol
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
The United States ◽  
Career Pathways ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Business Growth ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Ideas

Although there is vast diversity in apprenticeship concepts and practices in Europe, the United States, and other regions of the world, all apprenticeships are designed to support both the professional growth of workforce participants and business growth. Apprenticeships offer an efficient path to gaining valuable credentials and qualifications and thus are an important component of many career pathways. This chapter focuses on apprenticeships as a promising form of acquiring skills and credentials needed to fill the qualification gap of both white-collar and blue-collar workers. It provides a brief history of apprenticeship concepts, and it covers topics such as alignment of career pathways with apprenticeship concepts and trends. It illustrates the main ideas with examples of apprenticeship concepts and systems in several European countries and in the United States. It concludes with some considerations concerning future directions for research and practice.

Attributions (Beliefs) and Job Satisfaction Associated with Back Pain in an Industrial Setting

1993 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Linton ◽  
Lars-Erik Warg
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Back Pain ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Effective Prevention ◽  
Upper Management ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Job Levels ◽  
The Individual

We investigated possible differences between management and workers in attributions about the cause and prevention of industrial back pain. 145 employees from upper management, lower management, and blue-collar ranks completed several questionnaires. Age, sex, job satisfaction, and history of back pain were also examined for possible confounding effects. There were significant differences in attributions between job levels, with upper management believing more strongly in causal factors related to the individual, while blue-collar workers attributed back pain more frequently to the work environment. This difference was significant even when the effects of age, sex, job satisfaction, and pain were controlled. A history of back pain increased attributions of cause related to the work environment. Job dissatisfaction increased the risk for back pain nearly sevenfold and dissatisfied people tended to attribute the cause of their pain to the work environment. These results highlight the intricate relationship between attributions, job satisfaction, and pain. Compliance and motivation for interventions might be enhanced by taking into account differences in attributions of cause and effective prevention.

Work, Coalition, and Advocacy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Delgadillo ◽  
Janet Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Central America ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
Leadership Experiences ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores the leadership experiences of Latinas in Wisconsin and Iowa from a variety of occupational and ethnic backgrounds. Drawing on oral histories and archival documents, it places gender at the center of the analysis of twentieth-century migration of women and their families into the Midwest - first from Mexico and Texas and later from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Central America. Understanding the leadership work of these Latinas in communities, organizations, and homes, as well as their advocacy for civil rights and women’s rights as professional and blue-collar workers, helps reshape and enrich the narrative of the history of the Midwest.

The Jewish workers in the port of Thessaloniki (1939-1943): Their war experience as workers, Greeks and Jews

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-373
Author(s):  
Shai Srougo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
World War ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
The World ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Experience

This article explores the last chapter in the long history of the Jewish port workers in the waterfront of Thessaloniki—the World War II years. The Jewish blue-collar workers and white-collar workers shared a common history, and at the same time, each had a different story to tell on the drama of the war. Their everyday experience in the roles of workers, soldiers, non-combatants, and as Greek civilians reveals the Jewish role in shaping the space of the wartime port during three periods: Greek neutrality (September 1939 to September 1940), the Greek-Italian War (October 1940 to March 1941), and German occupation from April 1941 to March 1943, when the port became an ‘Aryan’ space.

A Community Accounting Matrix for Buffalo's East Side Neighborhood

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Cole
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
East Side ◽  
Neighborhood Development ◽  
Structural Relationships ◽  
History Of

A community accounting matrix (CAM) is an economic model that summarizes the transactions between the various industries and types of household in a neighborhood, as well as the neighborhood's links with its adjoining city and region. This article describes the construction and findings of a prototype CAM for the mainly African-American-populated East Side neighborhood of Buffalo and the more affluent, mainly white-populated city and suburbs. The CAM thus quantifies key structural relationships between race, space, and class in the Buffalo area. The CAM is used to calculate the implications of changes in this structure, such as continued shifts from manufacturing to services in the metropolitan area. It may also be used to evaluate neighborhood development projects and strategies that are designed to reverse the East Side's historic decline. The article begins with a summary of the demographic and economic history of Buffalo and the East Side and summarizes an analysis by Taylor of the need for a territorially focused community development strategy for the East Side. In the light of this analysis, several requirements for the CAM are discussed. The construction of CAM is then described, using a variety of data and a cultural accounting methodology developed elsewhere. Calculations are presented that demonstrate the “multiplier” and income distribution processes at work in the East Side's economy. Last, some possible applications of the CAM are discussed, and the empirical structure of the CAM and preliminary findings are related to other theories of poverty and the inner city.

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