This month, we want to introduce one of our favorite pathways into studying history: Labor History. The backstory begins 6 years ago, when Jenny took her first class with Tiffany. It was a class about commodities in world history. Tiffany taught the class focusing on four commodities: sugar, coffee, rubber, and bananas. This class impacted Jenny so much that she even got a tattoo in its honor. The primary and secondary sources in that class taught her 1) that she values learning history from a perspective that focuses on the lives of the workers (aka laborers) who built our world as we know it, and 2) that rubber has a surprisingly large role in our everyday lives, as well as the millions of people who were historically exploited for the production of rubber.
When studying labor history, Tiffany and Jenny typically like to focus on two things: workers’ experiences and their working conditions. This month, we will try and present resources that cover both of these aspects. First, we will read two short chapters from a book called The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber, by John Tully, which will give us an idea of the experiences and conditions for rubber laborers in two rubber capitals: Akron, Ohio and Manchester, England. The second activity will have us look at some primary sources from La Crosse to connect our community to this wider, global history of the production of rubber goods.
Chapter 3 & 9 of Devil’s Milk are together about 30 pages of reading. We included the preface of the book, so you can read John Tully’s small explanation of what inspired his research. It’s good to remember that historians too have biases and Tully explains his in his preface.
Download the pdf here:
As you read, consider the following ideas that stood out most to Tiffany and Jenny:
- Did you notice any human costs of rubber production? Where was someone’s health or well-being most impacted?
- How was Akron environmentally, economically, and even culturally transformed by rubber production?
[La Crosse] History Club 