A daily, pocket-sized history of America's working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.
Episodes
Tuesday Apr 22, 2025
Tuesday Apr 22, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 2011.
That was the day the labor movement lost one of its most poignant voices.
Hazel Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia in 1935. It was coal country.
Monday Apr 21, 2025
Monday Apr 21, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. The nation was in the grip of deep depression.
Unemployment soared. Workers wages and hours were cut dramatically in virtually every industry.
Sunday Apr 20, 2025
Sunday Apr 20, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1914 the bloody anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre.
11,000 miners had gone on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, John D. Rockefeller.
Saturday Apr 19, 2025
Saturday Apr 19, 2025
This marks the day one of the most horrendous acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. History occurred in Oklahoma City.
A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people
Friday Apr 18, 2025
Friday Apr 18, 2025
You have more than likely heard of Rosa Parks, and how she heroically sat down on a bus to help end segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. But did you know discrimination often barred black bus drivers, even in northern cities?
Thursday Apr 17, 2025
Thursday Apr 17, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1911. This marks the day that more than 4,000 furniture makers walked off the job in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Wednesday Apr 16, 2025
Wednesday Apr 16, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
The day dawned unseasonably cool in Texas City, TX, a port city forty miles south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico.
Tuesday Apr 15, 2025
Tuesday Apr 15, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1947.
It was opening day of a truly new baseball season.
Monday Apr 14, 2025
Monday Apr 14, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1939. This was the day readers were first introduced to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
Sunday Apr 13, 2025
Sunday Apr 13, 2025
On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. Labor leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs was sent to prison for speaking out against World War I.