The Labor Movement and its Impact on the Community
Highlights from a virtual workshop that took place on November 20, 2021.
Click here to access the complete resource page for this workshop
In this session we explored how local workers in the labor movement of the early 20th century faced nativist resistance, a recurring theme in American history that resonates with current times. We analyzed how a post-WWI civics education plan in Lawrence reflected fears about foreigners in the workforce and how civics education has morphed through the years.
The questions brought up during this workshop included:
- How does the labor movement of the early 20th century in Lawrence and its context of nativism help us understand the lingering impulse to “Americanize” newcomers and de-value “essential workers”?
- What role does civics education play in the past and present as we define what it means to be an American? How do change-makers in our region grapple with these issues today?
The entire workshop was recorded on Zoom (except for the break out sections). Watch Workshop 4 here.
Potential themes discussed in Workshop 4
- How did people use perceptions of workers as un-American, radical, and “ungodly” to diminish support for their demands?
- How does the Lawrence civics education plan from the late teens represent nativist fears about expanding definitions of who is an acceptable “American?”
- How have the goals for civics education changed since the days of the Lawrence Plan?
- To what extent do the gains made by the end of the Lawrence strike of 1919 reflect the success of the use of civic action by organized labor?
- How does the Lawrence Strike of 1919 exemplify tensions between a desire for “law and order” and the desire to reign in violence?
- How does the historiography of the labor strikes in Lawrence and the “God and Country parade” reflect changing perceptions of labor rights vs. “patriotic allegiance” to “law and order” values through the years?
View and download Lawrence Plan for Education in Citizenship here.
Using Essex History 
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