labor exhibit graphic
Volume 18,  Volume 18, Issue 3

Working for a Living. Exhibit features Labor Collections in the Archives and Rare Books Library.

postal workers sign letter to President Richard M. Nixon

Labor history concerns the lives of workers and their various and diverse struggles for workplace democracy, improved working conditions, collective bargaining and their relationship to changing forms of work and economic production. An online exhibit, Working for a Living, features the University of Cincinnati’s Archives and Rare Books Library labor collections.

union button

Part of the Urban Studies Collection, the labor collections include records from Cincinnati’s AFL-CIO Labor Council, the Regional Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers, the Barbers’ Union Local 49, International Brotherhood of Painters & Allied Trades Local 308 and others.

Available via the Libraries YouTube channel, the exhibit includes documents, photographs, pamphlets, union materials and more that help to tell the story of labor and unions in Cincinnati. For screens readers, a full exhibit transcript is on the Libraries website.

The Working for a Living exhibit was curated by Eira Tansey, digital archivist and records manager in the Archives and Rare Books Library. It was designed by Emily Young, spring semester library communication design co-op student, and Melissa Cox Norris, director of library communication.