Penn State University Libraries - History of Work in America since 1877

Using Reference Books is often a good way to begin gathering information on your topic, especially if you are unfamiliar with it. The following are reference titles that might be helpful:

• The ABC-CLIO Companion to the American Labor Movement

• Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History

• Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor

• Work in America : an Encyclopedia of History, Policy, and Society

• Labor Conflict in the United States : An Encyclopedia

• American Federation of Labor : History, Encyclopedia, Reference Book

• American Decades
  10 volumes — each volume has a section on business and economy.

• American Eras
  Volume 8: Development of the Industrial United States, 1878-1899 (pages 85-116)

• Beacham's Encyclopedia of Social Change : America in the Twentieth Century
  Volume 4: Work and the Workplace (pages 1857-1906)

• Encyclopedia of American Social History
  Volume II, part IX: Work and Labor (pages 1391-1588)

• Encyclopedia of American Social Movements
  Volume 2, part 4: Labor Movement (pages 455-692)

• Working Americans, 1880-2005 (6 volumes)

• Gale Virtual Reference Library [available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account]

• Economic Policy Institute
  "The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy."

• National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
  "Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER is committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community."

• PolicyFile
  Available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account, Policyfile draws its content from public policy think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers.

• Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
  Information about Pennsylvania workers and businesses, labor-management issues, and statistics on the Commonwealth's workforce.

• U.S. Department of Labor
  The place for things labor-related in the United States.

Historical Resources

• Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention (United Steelworkers of America)

• American labor unions' constitutions and proceedings : a guide to the microfilm edition

• State labor proceedings : a bibliography of the AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO proceedings, 1885-1974, held in the AFL-CIO Library

• AFL-CIO pamphlets, 1889-December 1955, held in the AFL-CIO Library : A collection of the official publications of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations from 1889 to the AFL-CIO merger in December 1955

• American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations pamphlets, 1889-1955 : a bibliography and subject index to the pamphlets held in the AFL-CIO Library

Archives and Special Collections

• The Historical Collections and Labor Archives [HCLA]
  Since 1958 HCLA has collected and cataloged a variety of primary sources on Pennsylvania and U.S. industrial society. HCLA has approximately four hundred individual groups of archival records and manuscript collections and many additional oral histories, photographs, newspapers, leaflets, pamphlets, sound recordings, microfilms, movie films, maps, and posters dating from 1650 to the 1980s.

Additional historical sources on Pennsylvania and Centre County can be found in the Special Collections Library's Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Penn State University Archives. Selected Finding Aids are available online.

Contact Special Collections Library staff to make an appointment for help with your research: 814-863-2505