About Us

Labor Arts presents powerful images to further understanding of the past and present lives of working people. We believe that labor arts include three types of images:

• photographs, posters, buttons, banners and flyers- images of artifacts that may not have been created as art but have artistic value;
• paintings, sculpture and other fine art that is about work; and
• art and artifacts that have been generated by working people.

We gather, identify and display images of these cultural artifacts in order to encourage more people in this country and around the world to stop and consider the history of work and working people. The labor movement is a critical part of the story, although it is not the whole story.

Labor in Crisis; Memory, Art and Race, 1911- 1929, for instance, looks at images from the NAACP’s Crisis magazine at a time when it was a clarion voice against racism. The ILGWU: Social Unionism in Action, outlines how the union expanded the definition of organizing, as it took a leadership role on immigration, civil rights and health care issues. The last section of this exhibit is about culture, and it includes examples of quilts, museum art classes, and songs – a small sample of the cultural texture of the labor movement. 

 

Our exhibits each focus on a specific subject or theme -- the other way to find images with in LaborArts is to search in the collection -- which contains most of the images from the exhibits as well as a wealth of additional items.  A small sample:

 

                                                           

 

 

Labor Arts is a joint project of The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives/ Tamiment Library at New York University. The Rubin Foundation supports innovative efforts to transform society's institutions, thereby making them more responsible. The Foundation's interests include the study of the relationship between art, culture and humanity.  The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives was created in 1977 by the Tamiment Institute and the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO to document, preserve and disseminate the history of New York City's working people and their organizations. It is a part of the Tamiment Library at NYU, a research collection documenting the history of radical politics.

 

Please visit the Copyright page for information about permissions and copyright.

 

 

We dedicate the site to Debra E. Bernhardt (1953-2001) who always reminded us of Joe Hill's refrain: Don't Mourn, Organize

 

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