Thursdays Till Nine: Left-wing Unions on the Stage

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 ACMA, Amalgamated Cultural Activities (New York, 1940), 5-6.

2 Himelstein, Drama was a Weapon; McDermott, “The Theatre Nobody Knows”; Duffy, American Labor on Stage; Fuoss, Striking Performances; Hyman, Staging Strikes; McAvoy, Rehearsing Revolutions.

3 Brown, Liberty Deferred; Kazacoff, Dangerous Theatre.

4 Guard, "Art as Activism’.

5 Zecker, “A Mandolin Orchestra”

6 Sawchuk, “Understanding Diverse Outcomes,” 200.

7 Gray, “The American Way,” 57.

8 See, in particular, the exceptional work of Devinatz, Stepan-Norris, and Zeitlin. Left Out.

9 Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism.

10 Sweeney, “Adult Working-Class Education”; Gleeson, Workers Education.

11 See United Office and Professional Workers of America, The White Collar Workers and the Future of the Nation; Shlakman, “White Collar Unions”; McColloch, “White Collar Unionism”; Opler, For all White-Collar Workers.

12 Opler, For All White-Collar Workers, 2.

13 Freeman, City of Workers, 109-110.

14 Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, 3.

15 Tamboukou, "‘Not Everything," 434.

16 Starr, Workers Education, 17.

17 Elden and Hardman, The Clothing Workers, 203-204 and 206.

18 Price, Modern Popular Theatre.

19 Ben Irwin, letter to unions. n.d. box 29, Folder: Administration; Lists of settlements and Unions. MssCol 2133, New Theatre League Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (hereafter cited as NTL Collection).

20 Mally, “Inside a Communist Front.”

21 Restchack, “Members of Dramatic Group,” 3.

22 Minutes, Executive meeting, 25 May 1938. NTL Collection, Box 28, Folder: NTL Papers; minutes of the National Executive Committee 1938 to 1940.

23 Alice Evans. Report to 1940 National Convention. NTL Collection, Box 28, Folder: NTL Papers; 1940 National Convention.

24 “Theatres Where They Belong.”

25 Rush, “A History and Evaluation of the ILGWU Labor Stage”; Goldman, “Pins and Needles: An Oral History”; Goldman, ""Pins and Needles": A White House Command Performance,”; Wright, “Labor takes the Stage”; Wright, "Pins and Needles."

26 Opler, “On the Popular Front.”

27 Opler, For All White-collar Workers, 71.

28 Devinatz, “Filling in the Interstices,” 216.

29 Hyman, “Politics Meet Popular Entertainment,”, 209.

30 Henry Foner interview with Daniel Soyer.

31 Excerpt from Reminiscences of Moe Foner.

32 Le Blanc, "Radical Labor Subculture."

33 Starr, "Workers' Education," 256.

34 Such as discussed in Bussel, Fighting for Total Person Unionism.

35 See Tufts, “Community Unionism”; Wills and Simms, “Building Reciprocal Community Unionism"; Nissen, “The Effectiveness and Limits of Labor-Community Coalitions”; Tattersall, Coalitions and Community Unionism.”

36 Sawchuk, “Labor Education and Labor Art”, Getman, Restoring the Power of Unions; Guard, "Art as Activism”; Camou, “Labor-Community Coalitions”; von Kotze, “Street Theatre”; Quinlan, "Staging Labor Renewal.”

37 Michelson, “Labour History and Culture.”