Public Event: Working People's Hidden Histories

Registration Closed

This event took place on December 9, 2021. Watch excerpts from the event below.

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  Working People's Hidden Histories Roundtable Discussion

  As part of the virtual public event, "Monumental Labor: Working People's Hidden Histories," Dr. Lane Windham moderates a discussion with Dr. Rosemary Feurer and Josephine Ong, M.A.

  Duration:

  47 minutes, 41 seconds

Monument to Apolinario Mabini, located in the Asan Beach unit of War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Guam.

What monuments are missing from the commemorative landscape?

What memorials have histories that are obscured or forgotten?

What do these silences tell us about the hidden histories of working people, especially the invisibility of women’s work from sites of memory and contemporary labor struggles?

This event examines monuments that relate to working people’s hidden histories. At the War in the Pacific National Monument on Guam are two memorials to Filipino revolutionary leader Apolinario Mabini (1864 -1903). Speakers will explore how the arrival of Filipino/a workers in the years after World War II led to the creation of these sites, and also examine the memorials' significance and meaning over time.

Between the Civil War and World War II, the most famous female labor activist in the United States was Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones. Despite longstanding efforts, there is no federal monument or memorial recognizing her contributions to labor rights. Speakers will discuss the ongoing work to commemorate her life, including both the push to make Mother Jones’ grave in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, a National Historic Landmark, and the campaign to dedicate a statue to Mother Jones in Chicago.

Event speakers will also address how labor activism today might connect to public history sites, especially contemporary Asian American and Pacific Islander worker organizing campaigns.

Mother Jones speaks to an assembled crowd in Montgomery, West Virginia in 1912 ahead of the Paint Creek Miners Strike.

West Virginia University

The event is co-sponsored by the Kalmanovitz Inittive for Labor and the Working Poor (KI) at Georgetown University and Women Innovating Labor Leadership (WILL) Empower. Speakers include: Josephine Ong (PhD Candidate in Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles); Dr. Rosemary Feuer (Professor of History, Northern Illinois University); and Alvina Yeh (Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and Institute for Asian Pacific American Leadership & Advancement (IAPALA). Dr. Lane Windham, Associate Director of the KI, will moderate the discussion.

**Tune in ten minutes before the event starts to see a slideshow of other NPS-affiliated sites that illuminate hidden histories of labor.**

"Monumental Labor" is a three-part public event series that explores the memory of work and working peoples in National Parks through their representation in monuments and memorials. The series is organized by NPS Mellon Humanities Fellows Dr. Eleanor Mahoney and Dr. Emma Silverman.

Dig Deeper

Under the American Sun: Camp Roxas Film Project - An independently produced 60-minute film documentary currently in production, traces the history of Filipino American immigrants to Guam who resided in Camp Roxas in Agat after World War II as part of the military reconstruction effort.

The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), AFL-CIO, is the first and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers. 

Mother Jones Heritage Project - in-person and virtual museum dedicated to sharing the history and legacy of Mother Jones, and to creating a memorial statue to Mother Jones in Chicago. 

Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship

"Monumental Labor" was made possible through the National Park Service by a grant from the National Park Foundation through generous support from the Mellon Foundation. The Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship program is administered through a partnership between NPS, NPF, and American Conservation Experience.