Anonymous photographs of Black nannies caring for white children, produced c. 1920s–1940s, document the racialized structure of domestic labor in the United States during the Jim Crow period and provide primary-source evidence for the study of African American women’s work, childcare, and social relations within white households. The images show.....
Unknown photographer, group of prison labor photographs, circa 1940s, documenting the use of incarcerated African American men in organized manual labor within the mid-twentieth-century United States penal system. The material documents the system of carceral labor through visual evidence of supervised work assignments, revealing how incarcerated individuals were deployed in.....
AFL leadership press photo archive, documenting council meetings, conventions, White House visits, and interunion conferences by the American Federation of Labor, 1924-1943. William Green succeeded Samuel Gompers as AFL president in 1924 and led the federation through the Depression, the New Deal labor laws, and wartime price and wage disputes.....
Women factory workers posed in repeated group portraits outside an unidentified industrial building, circa 1940s, documenting female industrial labor during the World War II home front mobilization that brought large numbers of women into wage work in factories, warehouses, and production sites. The archive depicts women wearing high-waisted slacks, short-sleeved.....
Chain gang labor photographs from the early twentieth century and mid twentieth century document the continuation of forced penal labor in the American South, a system that disproportionately targeted African American prisoners after the end of Reconstruction. Convict leasing and chain gang labor became central components of Southern penal systems.....
Black women’s labor photo archive depicting agricultural work, nursing, hospital training, clerical employment, service labor, and street protest from the turn of the century to 1960. Black women’s labor photo archive depicting the long movement of Black women into paid work beyond domestic service and agricultural labor, from cane-processing and.....
Stereoview archive of the post-emancipation Caribbean, showing how the islands were marketed to western viewers through plantation labor, export agriculture, civic spectacle, and catastrophe. As a group, these photos function not only as an ethnographic travel archive, but as evidence of the visual economy that followed slavery. The British West.....
Central American real photo postcard archive documenting banana transport, coastal exchange, Indigenous portraiture, civic gathering, and urban life in the early twentieth century, showcasing how agriculture, commerce, and public life operated under export driven development and foreign economic pressure. Images depict produce moved toward rail and port networks, carts and.....
Chinese textile salvage and export labor photographs, circa 1890s-1900s, document rag sorting and export trade labor in Late Qing dynasty to early Republican China. The images display laborers involved in the collection, sorting, disinfection, grading, and bundling of textile waste at a moment when recycled cloth served as a critical.....
Puttalam labor correspondence dated October 1922 records coercion within British Ceylon’s colonial coolie labor system, where maistries and “coolie masters” controlled the recruitment and movement of South Indian migrant workers. One letter states that “your monthly Coolie Masteries” came to No. 44, 5th Street “with stick,” abused the writers, and.....
[Women's Employment] [Labor]. First Edition, The 1913 report from the Commissioner of Labor exposes the conditions faced by women and children in the industrial labor force. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913. Vol. 103 from Senate Documents in the 2nd Session of 61st Congress. Bears two library stamps. Hardcover in brown.....
[Cuba] [Chinese] [Labor] Cuban indentured servant contract documenting the state administration of Chinese indenture in eastern Cuba in January 1868, with direct evidence of how colonial authorities, private employers, and local officials formalized the re-contracting of Chinese laborers under the legal framework established after the 1860 royal decree regulating Asian.....
[Cuba] [Chinese] [Labor] Cuban indentured servant contract documenting the state administration of Chinese indenture in western Cuba, July 1870, records the municipal enforcement of Cuban contract labor rules for Asian migrants under the post 1860 regulatory system that governed wages, discipline, illness, food, and flight. The form cites the Real.....
[Cuba] [Chinese] [Labor] Cuban indentured servant contract documenting the state administration of Chinese indenture in western Cuba, February 1867, records the municipal enforcement of Cuban contract labor rules for Asian migrants under the post 1860 regulatory system that governed wages, discipline, illness, food, and flight. Issued on a printed form.....
Mexican rural life and travel photo archive depicting labor, domestic service, market exchange, bullfighting training, and coastal development during the decade of the Mexican Revolution. Between 1910 and 1920, armed conflict, foreign oil investment, rail travel, and American tourism brought outsiders into contact with village economies, urban markets, and port.....
California metal foundry photo archive depicting integrated casting and machining operations during the decade when the state’s traditional ironworks industry entered rapid decline under new environmental regulation, OSHA enforcement, foreign competition, and industrial automation. California supported more than 2,000 foundries during the mid twentieth century, supplying cast metal components for.....
[Labor Organizing][Industry] General Electric strike photo archive documenting the 1960 IUE Local 201 strike at the GE River Works plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, press photographs of workers and labor organizers resisting GE’s take-it-or-leave-it bargaining practice at the factory gate. These images record the early days of the national IUE walkout.....
Dam construction photographs documenting large infrastructure work in the United States during the Depression era, 1930s. Images show the rapidly increasing demand for industrialization through large scale construction and machinery, engineering, and manual labor to build water control systems while the national economy was in crisis. The photographs primarily show.....
Gold Star Sausage Company press photo archive documenting immigrant factory labor inside an American sausage manufacturing plant during the 1970s, with particular emphasis on Yugoslavian workers engaged in high-volume industrial food production. Handwritten notes on the versos identify employees wrapping tamales, loading wieners into smokehouses, packing finished products into boxes.....
Original vintage Flyer from the National Union of Clerks that calls upon clerks to "think about their wages, their office conditions, and how things can be improved." London: Twentieth Century Press, 1912.Double sided. 8" x 5" inches. The flyer warns of the inevitable danger of undercutting wages in the absence.....
[19 cent Women Employment] [ Labor] The Twenty-First Annual Report of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, April, 1880. London: Printed by John Bale & Sons, [1880]. First edition. 8 x 5 in. Original paper wrappers. 30 pages. “The Society is formed for promoting the Training of Women.....
[Woman Employment] Jessie Boucherett. Legislative Restrictions on Women’s Labour. Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights. Reprinted by kind permission from the “Englishwoman Review.” London: Frederick Bell & Co., [1873]. First edition. 12 pages. Original paper wrappers. 8 x 5 in. “Another objection is that the Bill confirms the.....
[Women's Employment][Labor][Feminism][WWII] Archive of ten original photos documenting American women’s industrial labor during the 1930s and 1940s. Original black-and-white press photographs taken in various factories during World War II, including steel works, textiles, candy production, and industrial assembly lines. Stamped by press agencies including Acme Newspictures, Brown Brothers, and International.....
Pair of Original Gelatin Silver Photographs Documenting Industrial Medical Examinations. New York: Brown Brothers, ca. 1910s–1920s. Two gelatin silver prints, each measuring 6.5" x 8". Photographer’s stamp to verso: “Photograph by Brown Brothers, 1482 Broadway, N.Y.” Contemporary manuscript annotations on verso. A scarce visual record of early 20th-century industrial medicine.....
U.S. Department of Labor. Ten-Hour Maximum Working-Day for Women and Young Persons. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913. First edition. 71 pages. Original green printed wrappers. Published as Bulletin No. 118 of the Bureau of Labor Statistics under Commissioner Charles P. Neill, this 1913 report surveys global legislation on the regulation.....
