Labnet: Book ann.: American Labor Posters

[labnet at lists.labourhistory.net]

From: Labourhistory.net

Title: American Labor Posters
Subtitle: Book ann: Cornell University Press
URL: http://labourhistory.net/news/i0904_10.php 

A New ILR Press Book from Cornell University Press

'Agitate! Educate! Organize!: American Labor Posters' Lincoln Cushing
and Timothy W. Drescher

Cornell University Press | 216 pages | May 2009

ISBN 978-0-8014-7427-9 Paper $24.95

"We seek to inform as well as to celebrate. The best posters about
American workers and the jobs at which they labor make up a visually
fascinating body of work that rewards our attention. The posters were
produced with a dual purpose: to entertain and to inform. They were also
vehicles for working people to present themselves visually, which is
rarely as straightforward as it might seem because the labor force
itself is not monolithic. Nor are the posters about just paid or wage
labor. They repeatedly demonstrate that labor issues include both the
workplace and the outside community and often portray families and
neighbors, not just fellow workers." -from Agitate! Educate! Organize!

In Agitate! Educate! Organize!, Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher
share their vast knowledge about the rich graphic tradition of labor
posters. Lavish full-color reproductions of more than 250 of the best
posters that have emerged from the American labor movement ensure that
readers will want to return again and again to this visually fascinating
treasury of little-known images from the American past. Some of the
posters were issued by government programs and campaigns; some were
devised by unions as recruiting tools or strike announcements; others
were generated by grassroots organizations focused on a particular issue
or group of workers-all reveal much about the diverse experiences of
working people in the United States.

American labor posters are widely scattered, difficult to locate, and
rarely archived. Cushing and Drescher examined several thousand such
images in the course their research, guaranteeing a truly representative
selection. The presentation of the posters is thematic, with a brief
history of activist graphic media followed by chapters on Dignity and
Exploitation; Health and Safety; Women; Race and Civil Rights; War,
Peace and Internationalism; Solidarity and Organizing; Strikes and
Boycotts; Democracy, Voting, and Patriotism; History, Heroes, and
Martyrs; and Culture. Along with the stunning color images, the text
contributes to a much deeper understanding of the politics, history,
artistry, and impact of this genre of activist art and the importance of
the labor movement in the transformation of American society over the
course of the twentieth century.

For more information about this book, please visit the Cornell
University Press or the Docs Populi websites.

Jonathan Hall
Publicity Manager
jlh98 at cornell.edu
Cornell University Press
512 E. State St. / Ithaca, NY 14850
607.277.2338, x252 / Fax 607.277.2374
FIND A BOOK: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_subject.html