Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions

Over the past two centuries, Massachusetts workers have fought for many important advances that would later be enjoyed by other Americans. The right to organize, restrictions on work hours and child labor, and workers' compensation were all pioneered in the Commonwealth. From the 1825 strike of Boston carpenters for a ten-hour day to recent victories in hospitals and universities, Massachusetts workers and their unions have been in the forefront of the battle for dignity and justice. 

This book tells their story. In eighteen chapters, beginning with the first industrial workers in the nation―the Lowell “mill girls”―the authors describe the struggles of working men and women to improve their lives. In the process, the book provides a valuable perspective on the development of the American labor movement.

TOM JURAVICH is associate professor and research director at the Labor Relations and Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is author of Chaos on the Shop Floor and coauthor of Union Organizing in the Public Sector. WILLIAM F. HARTFORD, an independent scholar, is author of Where Is Our Responsibility? Unionsand Economic Change in the New England Textile Industry, 1870-1960 and Working People of Holyoke: Class and Ethnicity in a a Massachusetts Mill Town, 1850-1960. JAMES R. GREEN is professor and director of labor studies at the College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts Boston. He is author of Grass-roots Socialism: Radical Movement in the Southwest, 1895-1943; Boston Workers: A Labor History; and The World of the Worker: Labor in Twentieth-Century America.