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Minnesota Book Awards
April 21 - May 20, 2009
Untold Stories celebrates its 11th anniversary with a month of lectures, tours, performances and more...
Jeremy Brecher – Meeting Today’s Crisis: What Can We Learn from Labor’s History?
Tuesday, April 21, 7 p.m.
Macalester College, Weyerhaeuser Chapel, 1600 Grand Avenue
Jeremy Brecher is a historian whose books include Strike!, Globalization From Below, and, co-edited with Brendan Smith and Jill Cutler, In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond. He has received five regional Emmy Awards for his documentary film work. Co-sponsored by the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition.
Arnold Alanen – Morgan Park: Duluth, U.S. Steel, and the Forging of a Company Town
Tuesday, April 28, 7 p.m.
Rice Street Branch Library, 1011 Rice Street
Arnold Alanen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, creates a fascinating tour through the signature community of Duluth’s industrial past in Morgan Park: Duluth, U.S. Steel, and the Forging of a Company Town. In his book, Alanen presents vivid portraits of Morgan Park, the formerly company-controlled town that now stands as a city neighborhood, and the U.S. Steel plant for which it was built. Photo of Arnold Alanen by Craig Schreiner
Film Premiere: “Twin Cities Assembly Plant: A Job and A Family”
Thursday, April 30, 7 p.m.
Merriam Park Branch Library, 1831 Marshall Avenue
Since 1925, Ford Motor Company has operated a manufacturing plant on the banks of the Mississippi River in Saint Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood, employing thousands of workers. A new documentary by the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service tells the history of the Twin Cities plant, United Auto Workers Local 879 and the community they created both inside and outside the factory.
After the premiere of the film, join in a panel discussion that will include local historian Brian McMahon, a Ford worker, and others. Co-sponsored by UAW Local 879.
Reading and Concert:
Poet Mark Nowak, Coal Mountain Elementary, with a performance of labor songs by the Twin Cities Labor Chorus
Thursday, May 7, 7 p.m.
Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 North Dale Street
Coal Mountain Elementary is a singular, genre-defying treatise from one of America’s most innovative political poets, Mark Nowak. Coal Mountain Elementary remixes verbatim testimony from the surviving Sago, West Virginia miners and rescue teams, the American Coal Foundation’s curriculum for schoolchildren, newspaper accounts of mining disasters in China, and full-color photographs of Chinese miners by renowned photojournalist, Ian Teh.
After the reading, the Twin Cities Labor Chorus will present labor songs in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Little Red Songbook.
Coal Mountain Blog - Mark Nowak is the author of Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009) and Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004). For the past several years he has been designing and facilitating “poetry dialogues” with Ford autoworkers in the United States and South Africa (through the UAW and NUMSA), striking clerical workers (through AFSCME 3800), Muslim/Somali nurses and healthcare workers (through Rufaidah), and others. A native of Buffalo, New York, he now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota where he is an Associate Professor at the College of St. Catherine. Visit the Blog
Documentary “Con el Toque de la Chaveta”
with El Lector author, William Durbin
Tuesday, May 12, 7 p.m.
Riverview Branch Library, 1 East George Street
The film, “Con el Toque de la Chaveta,” (With a Stroke of the Chaveta) takes viewers into the cigar factories of Cuba to witness the tradition of la lectura de tabaqueria, the collective reading of literature, while tabaqueros roll habanos. From lectores Odayls, Aguila and Gricel learn about the challenges of meeting the expectations of a knowledgeable and demanding workforce and the satisfaction of receiving the applause of hundreds of chavetas in unison. This poetic documentary leaves one wondering where to draw the line between ‘worker’ and ‘intellectual.’ After the film, award-winning author William Durbin discusses his recent young adult novel, El Lector, in which the 13-year-old protagonist Bella wants to be a lector, just like her grandfather. Co-sponsored by the Labor & Community Film Series.
History Day Presentations – The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies
Wednesday, May 13, 7:30 p.m.
Labor & Professional Centre, 411 Main Street
Join Minnesota high school students as they present their labor-related original displays, performances and films for History Day, on the topic of “The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies.” The program promotes the study of history by engaging students and teachers in the excitement of historical inquiry and creative presentation. Watch labor history come alive with these imaginative projects.
Dave Riehle’s Annual Labor Tour
The Teamster Strike – 75 Years Later
Saturday, May 16, 2 p.m.
Merriam Park Branch Library, 1831 Marshall Avenue
(Optional Minneapolis start location: 2:30 p.m. at Central Library, by the bus stop on 3rd Street toward Hennepin)
Untold Stories favorite Dave Riehle presents his annual labor tour. This year, the local historian leads a Teamster Strike Tour, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the 1934 strikes in Minneapolis. Space is limited, so please call The Friends at 651-222-3242 to reserve your seat on the bus. Co-sponsored by the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
1934 Teamster Strike Panel
Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.
Dayton’s Bluff Branch/Metropolitan State University Library, Ecolab Room, 645 East Seventh Street
Untold Stories closes with a presentation on the 75th anniversary of the 1934 Teamster Strikes. Join a panel of speakers for a discussion commemorating the devastating 1934 Teamster Strikes. Panelists will include Ben Fisher, currently working on a graphic novel about the strikes. This event is co-sponsored by Metropolitan State University.
Dig Deeper:
Remembering the truckers strike of 1934
By IRIC NATHANSON, MinnPost - July 22, 2008
Bloody Friday, as it came to be known, was the climax of a bitter strike that had convulsed Minneapolis throughout the summer of 1934, at the height of the Great Depression.
The strike had pitted Teamsters Local 574 against a group of employers backed by the powerful anti-union Citizens Alliance. For decades, the Alliance had maintained a tight grip on the city's economy and thwarted union organizing efforts.
READ MORE...
Look back through history, and see previous years' events:
Untold Stories, 1999; Untold Stories, 2000; Untold Stories, 2001; Untold Stories, 2002; Untold Stories, 2003; Untold Stories, 2004; Untold Stories, 2005; Untold Stories, 2006; Untold Stories, 2007; Untold Stories, 2009
Click here for related labor books and films.
Untold Stories events are free and open to the public. Untold Stories is coordinated by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. For more information, call 651-222-3242. Co-sponsors include Coffee House Press, Library Foundation of Hennepin County, Macalester College History Department, the Department of Social Sciences at Metropolitan State University, Micawber’s Books, Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, Minnesota Historical Society, Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, Saint Paul Labor Speakers Club, Twin Cities Labor History Society, UAW Local 879 and the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service. This series is supported by an endowment created with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation.