Product details
- ISBN 9781978834637
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 08 Dec 2026
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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During the first half of the twentieth century, the introduction of cheap or free recreation to the workplace provided a metaphorical place where ordinary working-class people of all races and genders gained access to physical leisure and developed bonds of camaraderie in the anti-fascist labor movement. Strikes and Strikeouts: Labor Sports in the United States illustrates how this largely forgotten Labor Sports movement was critical in helping unions become forces for larger cultural change and essential to understanding the potency of the 1930-40s labor movement. Drawing from ten different labor and leftist social movement archives, Robinson strives to reconstruct the "people's history." At its height, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, the Labor Sports movement presented a real alternative to both apolitical and conservative sports and involved millions of working-class people. It was a key part of improving the lives of average Americans and helped build an anti-racist, anti-fascist, working class counterculture that helped change the United States through a strong labor movement. This movement brought higher living standards for working class people and the end of racial segregation in sports, which in turn aided the Civil Rights movement.
James W. J. Robinson received his PhD in History from Northeastern University in 2020. He teaches American history in the Labor Studies Department at Rutgers University, and is a tour guide in Philadelphia, where he resides. This is his first book.
