Social History

by : http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/social_history/social_history.cfm

The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans: As Told by Themselves
Hamilton Holt, ed. (New York: J. Pott & Co., 1906)

The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans As Told By Themselves was originally published in 1906. It collected interviews with a number of ordinary Americans such as former slaves, immigrants, sweatshop workers, housewives, and farmers wives. These articles were first published in Holt's 's reformist newspaper The New York Independent during the early 1900s.

The stories included here reflect the lives of most of people who lived in this country at the turn of the last century.

Contents

• The Biography of a Bootblack: Rocco Corresca
• Experiences of a Street Car Conductor
• A Swedish Emigrant's Story: Axel Jarlson
• A Collar Starcher's Story
• The Story of a Sweatshop Girl: Sadie Frowne
• One Farmer’s Wife
• Women on the Farm
• A College Professor's Wife
• "Shall the Professor 'Stay Put'?" by Another College Professor's Wife
• From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards - An Autobiography: Antanas Kaztauskis
• The Chicago Strike: A Teamster
• A Cap Maker's Story: Rose Schneiderman
• The Autobiography of a Labor Leader: James Williams
• A Miner's Story
• The New Slavery in the South--An Autobiography: A Georgia Negro Peon
• The Biography of a Chinaman: Lee Chew
• More Slavery at the South: A Negro Nurse
• The Race Problem -An Autobiography: A Southern Colored Woman

Resources:

• Worklore: Brooklyn Workers Speak, a joint research/exhibition project of The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Public Library, explores the work lives of Brooklynites as they made, and continue to make, their living in the borough. Using photographs and personal quotes, this online exhibition compares the experience of working in the past to doing so today.
  http://www.worklore.net/game-launch.html
• Triangle Factory Fire
  This web exhibit presents original documents and secondary sources on the Triangle Fire, held by the Cornell University Library.
  http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/

Man (boss) waiving his fist at female employee in a sweatshop (clothing factory)
Illus. in: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, (1888 Nov. 3), p. 188. Library of Congress