LAWCHA invites students, activists, scholars, educators, and everyone between to contribute to the ongoing conversation at LaborOnline. We consider pieces of any length covering any topic–historical, contemporary, or pertaining the art or craft of writing and/or history–by people of diverse backgrounds.
We particularly encourage independent scholars or young scholars like undergraduate and graduate students to get involved in LaborOnline. It’s an excellent way to get involved in the labor and working-class history community!
What is it?
LaborOnline is the Labor and Working-Class History Association’s blog-style website featuring commentary on a host of issues, historical and contemporary, offering contributors and readers the opportunity to engage in instant dialog and debate about a range of issues. Material from LAWCHA’s official journal, Labor is frequently made available for free on LaborOnline for the purposes of debate and discussion.
In the past, we have had vigorous, fruitful discussions of journal content. For example:
- Haymarket on Trial: Timothy Messer-Kruse’s The Trial of Haymarket Activists, by Rosemary Feurer
- Yes, Ludlow Was a Massacre, by Anthon DeStefanis and Rosemary Feurer, with responses by Scott Marelle and Thomas Andres
We have also had a host of extremely popular articles read by tens of thousands of interested readers, such as:
- On Ferguson, Missouri: History, Protest, and “Respectability”, by Clarence Lang
- Stop Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People, by Sam Mitrani
- Austerity Saturdays from the Postal Service, by Philip Rubio
LaborOnline articles are widely-read on the internet, with some articles reaching an upward of 20,000 readers over their lifetime. Many popular articles also receive vibrant discussion in the comments section. Authors looking for exposure or just to run some ideas or analytical possibilities past some of the world’s best labor historians and activists will find LaborOnline a fruitful way to get their names and ideas out there!
What We’re Looking For
We’re looking for a variety of submissions: teaching material, one-off posts, musings about the upcoming election, links to news or multimedia that you find is relevant to a wide audience of historians, activists, and people interested in labor and working-class history.
Things we like:
- Medium-length posts. A piece between 200 and 1,000 words about any topic loosely related to politics, labor, working-class people, or culture that you think our readers will enjoy.
- Long-form content. Longer pieces, either historically-informed or about current events that offer your perspective on a certain issue or event. This can include things like educational articles (e.g., an eye-witness account you found of a certain historical event, a short summary of some important topic in labor history, etc.); connecting past to present (e.g., Trump, the Tea Party, and 19th-century Populists, NFL Players Associations and the history of sports unions, etc.); or explorations of interesting cultural events (e.g., Clarence Lang’s article on a punk band, “A “Death” the Whole World Should See.”
- Short-form content links. 50-100 word blurbs on a certain article, teaching material, photographic collection, YouTube video, or any article that our readers might be interested in, followed by a link to that content.
But we’re always open to new things. If you have a cool new idea, please pass it along to us!
How to Submit
Simply open a conversation with me, Ryan Poe (rmpoe.history@gmail.com), pitching an idea or even with what you want attached, and we’ll work together to get your piece online! We tend to not want to take over our authors’ pieces, but we’re happy to copy edit and provide feedback if you want it.
