James R. Green
James Robert Green (November 4, 1944 – June 23, 2016) was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.Green received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1972. Green studied under the legendary historian C. Vann Woodward, and became acquainted with the leftist historians Eric Hobsbawm and Herbert Gutman. During this time he also was involved in the anti-war movement, which eventually sparked his interest in the history of radicalism in the United States.Green's research focuses on radical political and social movements in the U.S. (including new social movements), as well as the history of labor unions in the United States. Green writes social and political history from "the bottom up." He writes from a leftist theoretical standpoint.In 1987, in addition to continuing on the faculty at UMass-Boston, Green was named a lecturer at the Harvard Trade Union Program (now called the Labor and Worklife Program) at Harvard Law School.In 1995, Green founded the Labor Resource Center at UMass-Boston.In 1998, Green was named a Fulbright scholar and taught at the University of Genoa in Italy.Green was a member of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA). He was a vice president of LAWCHA from 2001 to 2003 and its president from 2003 to 2005.
Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
James R. Green
On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a Chicago labor rally, wounding dozens of policemen, seven of whom eventually died. A wave of mass hysteria swept the country, leading to a sensational trial, that culminated in four controversial executions, and dealt a blow to the labor movement from which it would take decades to recover. Historian James Green recounts the rise of the first great labor movement in the wake of the Civil War and brings to life an epic twenty-year struggle for the eight-hour workday. Blending a gripping narrative, outsized characters and a panoramic portrait of a major social movement, Death in the Haymarket is an important addition to the history of American capitalism and a moving story about the class tensions at the heart of Gilded Age America.
The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom
James R. Green
From before the dawn of the 20th century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation’s largest labor union, and the legendary “miners’ angel,” Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis verging on civil war that stretched from the creeks and hollows to the courts and the US Senate. In The Devil is Here in These Hills , celebrated labor historian James Green tells the story of West Virginia and coal like never before.
The value of West Virginia’s coalfields had been known for decades, and after rail arrived in the 1870s, industrialists pushed fast into the wilderness, digging mines and building company towns where they wielded nearly complete control over everyday life. The state’s high-quality coal drove American expansion and industrialization, but for tens of thousands of laborers, including boys as young as ten, mining life showed the bitter irony of the state motto, “Mountaineers are Always Free.” Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent, then broken, and the violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict, as an army of miners marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and told in vibrant detail, The Devil is Here in These Hills is the definitive book on an essential chapter in the history of American freedom.
Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895–1943
James R. Green
Grass-Roots Socialism answers two of the most intriguing questions in the history of American why was the Socialist party stronger in Oklahoma than in any other state, and how was the party able to build powerful organizations in nearby rural southwestern areas?
Many of the same grievances that had created a strong Populist movement in the region provided the Socialists with potent political issues―the railroad monopoly, the crop lien system, and political corruption. With these widely felt grievances to build on, the Socialists led the class-conscious farmers and workers to a radicalism that was far in advance of that advocated by the earlier People’s party.
Examined in this broadly based study of the movement are popular leaders like Oklahoma’s Oscar Ameringer (“The Mark Twain of American Socialism”), “Red Tom” Hickey of Texas, and Kate Richards O’Hare, who was second only to Eugene Debs as a Socialist orator. Included also is information on the party’s propaganda techniques, especially those used in the lively newspapers which claimed fifty thousand subscribers in the Southwest by 1913, and on the attractive summer camp meetings which drew thousands of poor white tenant farmers to week-long agitation and education sessions.
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