John Fabian Witt recounts how in the 1920s and 1930s Charles Garland donated his million-dollar inheritance to the American Fund for Public Service, or Garland Fund, to support progressive causes and organizations he believed could challenge inequality and reshape capitalism and democracy in America.

Dr. Witt is a Professor of History and the Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale University and author of The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America.

Related Resources:
The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America

Related Collections:
Brookwood Labor College Records (LR000567_BLC)
John and Phyllis Collier Papers (LP000141)
Richard W. and Constance Cowen Papers (LP000924)
Henry Richardson Linville Papers (LP000373)
UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records (LR000261)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: John Fabian Witt
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Jody Baxter Noll recounts the 1968 Florida Teachers’ Strike, in which 27,000 teachers across the state, amidst a shift in Florida politics toward a pro-business and suburban “Sunshine conservatism” reluctant to raise taxes for public education, submitted their resignations to gain collective bargaining rights and improved school funding. Noll is a Lecturer in the History Department at Georgia State University and author of The 1968 Florida Teachers’ Strike: Public Sector Unionism and the Fight against Sunshine State Conservatism.

Related Resources:
The 1968 Florida Teachers’ Strike: Public Sector Unionism and the Fight against Sunshine State Conservatism

Related Collections:
AFT Office of the President Records (LR001553)
AFT President’s Office: Albert Shanker Records (LR001553_Shanker)
AFT Southern Regional Office Records (LR001863)
Howard Hursey Papers (LP2047)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Jody Baxter Noll
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

Karen Horting, Executive Director and CEO of the Society of Women Engineers, talks about SWE’s archives at the Reuther Library and shares how the 75-year-old organization leverages its history to advocate for the inclusion of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Related Resources:
Society of Women Engineers 75th Anniversary
SWE Archives Virtual Tour [Part 1]
SWE Archives Virtual Tour [Part 2]

Related Collections:
Society of Women Engineers Records (LR001539)
Society of Women Engineers Publications (LR002487)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Karen Horting
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Martin Hershock recounts the violent three-day strike against General Motors supplier Federal Screw Works in 1938, when women from Detroit’s Polish community led the fight to preserve both their recently-recognized union and their neighborhood. Hershock is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of the article, “Seems to Me You Have Plenty of Nerve”: Polish American Women, Detroit’s Federal Screw Works Strike of 1938, and the Fate of the UAW.”

Related Resources:
“Seems to Me You Have Plenty of Nerve”: Polish American Women, Detroit’s Federal Screw Works Strike of 1938, and the Fate of the UAW.”

Related Collections:
Peter H. Amann Papers (UP001229)
Joe Brown Papers (LP000047)
Stanley and Margaret Collingwood Nowak Papers (LP000003)
UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records (LR000261)
Virtual Motor City / Detroit News Photograph Collection

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Martin Hershock
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

In celebration of the Reuther Library’s 50th anniversary, Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO discusses the importance of understanding labor and legislative history when bargaining for better labor contracts for flight attendants today.

Related Resources:
Turbulent Romance: The History of the Association of Flight Attendants

Related Collections:
Association of Flight Attendants: Dallas Records (LR000981)
AFA Chicago/Rosemont: McDonald v. UAL Case Records (LR002386)
AFA Washington, D.C.: McDonald v. UAL Case Records (LR002385)
ALPA Steward and Stewardess Division Records (LR002252)
ALPA Dallas BNF MEC Records (LR003073)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Sara Nelson
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

Professor Michelle Adams describes the struggles to integrate Detroit’s highly segregated neighborhoods and schools in the 1960s, a federal judge’s ruling to alleviate that segregation by bussing students between the predominately Black schools in Detroit and predominantly white schools in the suburbs, and the Supreme Court’s subsequent 1974 Milliken v. Bradley decision that acknowledged the segregated state of Detroit schools but overturned the “metropolitan remedy,” thereby allowing de facto school segregation to persist today.

Adams is the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and author of The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North.

Related Resources:
The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North

Related Collections:
Robert E. DeMascio Papers (LP002075)
Detroit Board of Education Detroit Public Schools Records (WSR000681)
Detroit Public Schools Community Relations Division Records (LR000951)
Damon J. Keith Papers (UP001582)
NAACP Detroit Branch Records (UR000244)
Remus Robinson Papers (UP000447)
Wayne State University College of Education, Dean’s Office: Detroit Public Schools Monitoring Commission on Desegregation Records (WSR001371)
Coleman Young Papers (UP000449)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Michelle Adams
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

Dr. Beth Widmaier Capo discusses the Detroit Feminist Women’s Health Center and the role health practitioners there—including her mother—played in empowering women to understand their bodies and take control of their health in the 1970s. Capo is the Edward Capps Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Illinois College, and author of the article, “The Detroit Feminist Women’s Health Center; Or, on Hearing Your Mom Described as ‘The Fucking Bravest Bitch I Knew.’”

Related Resources:
“The Detroit Feminist Women’s Health Center; Or, on Hearing Your Mom Described as ‘The Fucking Bravest Bitch I Knew.’”

Related Collections:
Detroit Feminist Women’s Health Center

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Beth Widmaier Capo
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

John Miles Branch discusses the National Labor Relations Board’s policy to dismiss union petitions at charitable organizations in the decades following the Second World War, and the policy’s reversal in 1976 when the board acknowledged nonprofit institutions as a “third sector” of the economy linked with the nation’s commercial life.
Branch is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. History at Northwestern University and author of the article, “Union Exemption: Nonprofit Work and the Boundaries of the Commercial Economy, 1951–1976.”

Related Resources:
“Union Exemption: Nonprofit Work and the Boundaries of the Commercial Economy, 1951–1976”

Related Collections:
Milton Tambor Papers (LP002342)
Thelma Bernstein Papers (LP000683)

Episode Credits
Interviewee: John Miles Branch
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear