Laboring under Documentary
The impulse to record and document labor struggle is almost as old as the concept of documentary itself. From the Worker’s Film and Photo League to the activist programming of Labor Beat, documentary has had an intimate relationship with the labor struggle. This chapter addresses the history of labor documentary production in the United States as an expression of radical ideology. Challenging the aesthetic form and content of the mainstream media, the labor movement is a loosely connected network of activists and artists across the country, engaged in efforts to produce media outside mainstream institutions. Specifically, this chapter focuses on elements of labor history that made significant contributions but are now largely ignored and undocumented: the efforts of radical women, rank-and-file amateur videographers, and undocumented workers. Existing on the fringes of the mainstream and counterculture, the work of women in alternative media in the early 1970s reflected a direct relationship between their lived experience, the camera, and political engagement, embodying a liberated agency that is magnified by the documentary camera. The chapter creates a portrait of the documentary commons as it expands and works for citizens in their daily lives. They represent a whole population of radical activists carving out a space for themselves to engage labor and social change with their cameras.