Networked Labor

A network chart representing the organizational links of immigrant labor activist Pauline Newman.

A network chart representing the organizational links of immigrant labor activist Pauline Newman.

Networked Labor gathers my work on data and digital humanities approaches to labor history and labor studies.

The site includes visualizations of historic data sets, particularly the American Labor Who’s Who and the American Labor Press Directory (both 1925). Linking this data to other publicly accessible resources holds the potential to connect more people to the history of social movements in North America.

My labor data projects also support critical pedagogy for undergraduate students. These days “Big Data” is more than a buzzword for quantification. It is also operates as an ideological assertion that data can, and inevitably will, replace human knowledge. Helping students understand the contemporary information ecosystem empowers them to use technology in ways that advance their own lives, and the well-being of the planet.

In addition to the data and visualizations hosted on the Networked Labor site, you might be interested in my reflections on teaching with Wikipedia and other Ideas for Digital Labor History.