Source: Wikimedia Commons
The cannery was one of the great employers of women in twentieth-century industry, and almost nobody writes about it. In fruit and vegetable districts, salmon ports and tomato…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 the cotton mill was the largest employer across a wide band of the Southern states, and in hundreds of towns it was the only one. The…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 coal mining employed hundreds of thousands of people and killed several hundred of them a year. The work was done largely by hand, the roof was…
Source: Wikipedia
In 1950 the steam locomotive was still the normal way to move a train, and running one took two men doing physical work continuously for the length of the…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The annual company picnic was not a perk bolted onto a job. For a substantial part of the mid-century workforce it was the one day a year when…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Before there were discotheques, clubs or anything with a disc jockey in it, the Saturday night out in most American towns of any size meant a hall with…