Buhle, Paul and Nicole Schulman. Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World.Verso, 2005.

The stories of the hard-rock miners' shooting wars, young Elizabeth Gurly Flynn (the "Rebel Girl" of contemporary sheet music), the first sit-down strikes and Free Speech fights, Emma Goldman and the struggle for birth control access, the Pageant for Paterson orchestrated in Madison Square Garden, bohemian radicals John Reed and Louise Bryant, field-hand revolts and lumber workers' strikes, wartime witch hunts, government prosecutions and mob lynching, Mexican-American uprisings in Baja, and Mexican peasant revolts led by Wobblies, hilarious and sentimental songs created and later revived—all are here, and much, much more.

Carter, Bill. Boom, Bust, Boom: A Story about Copper, the Metal that Runs the World.Scribner Book Company, 2012.

Starting in his own backyard in the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona—where he discovers that the dirt in his garden contains double the acceptable level of arsenic—Bill Carter follows the story of copper to the controversial Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia; to the “ring” at the London Metal Exchange, where a select group of traders buy and sell enormous amounts of the metal; and to an Alaskan salmon run threatened by mining. Boom, Bust, Boom is a highly readable account—part social history, part mining-town exploration, and part environmental investigation. Page by page, Carter blends the personal and the international in a narrative that helps us understand the paradoxical relationship we have with a substance whose necessity to civilization costs the environment and the people who mine it dearly.

Dray, Philip. There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America.Doubleday, 2010.

From the nineteenth-century textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for the American bounty has shaped our national experience. In this stirring new history, Philip Dray shows us the vital accomplishments of organized labor and illuminates its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. His epic, character-driven narrative not only restores to our collective memory the indelible story of American labor, it also demonstrates the importance of the fight for fairness and economic democracy, and why that effort remains so urgent today.

Grandin, Greg. The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. Metropolitan Books, 2019.

Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation—democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America has a new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history—from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion—fighting wars and opening markets—served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America.University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Slotkin examines an impressive array of sources—fiction, Hollywood westerns, and the writings of Hollywood figures and Washington leaders—to show how the racialist theory of Anglo-Saxon ascendance and superiority (embodied in Theodore Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West), rather than Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis of the closing of the frontier, exerted the most influence in popular culture and government policy making in the twentieth century. He argues that Roosevelt’s view of the frontier myth provided the justification for most of America’s expansionist policies, from Roosevelt’s own Rough Riders to Kennedy’s counterinsurgency and Johnson’s war in Vietnam.

Benton-Cohen, Katherine. Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands. Harvard University Press, 2009.

“Are you an American, or are you not?” This was the question Harry Wheeler, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, used to choose his targets in one of the most remarkable vigilante actions ever carried out on U.S. soil. And this is the question at the heart of Katherine Benton-Cohen’s provocative history, which ties that seemingly remote corner of the country to one of America’s central concerns: the historical creation of racial boundaries. It was in Cochise County that the Earps and Clantons fought, Geronimo surrendered, and Wheeler led the infamous Bisbee Deportation, and it is where private militias patrol for undocumented migrants today. These dramatic events animate the rich story of the Arizona borderlands, where people of nearly every nationality—drawn by “free” land or by jobs in the copper mines—grappled with questions of race and national identity.

Murolo, Priscilla and A. B. Chitty. From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States. New Press, 2001.

From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend surveys the historic efforts and sacrifices that working people have made to win the rights we take for granted today: basic health and safety standards in the workplace, fair on-the-job treatment for men and women, the minimum wage, and even the weekend itself. With dramatic cartoon narratives by internationally-acclaimed artist Joe Sacco, this book brings labor history to life.

Punke, Michael. Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mine Disaster of 1917. Hachette Books, 2006.

While the disaster is compelling in its own right, Fire and Brimstone also tells a far broader story striking in its contemporary relevance. Butte, Montana, on the eve of the North Butte disaster, was a volatile jumble of antiwar protest, an abusive corporate master, seething labor unrest, divisive ethnic tension, and radicalism both left and right. It was a powder keg lacking only a spark, and the mine fire would ignite strikes, murder, ethnic and political witch hunts, occupation by federal troops, and ultimately a battle over presidential power.

Watson, Bruce. Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream.Viking Books, 2005.

On January 12, 1912, an army of textile workers stormed out of the mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, commencing what has since become known as the "Bread and Roses" strike. Based on newspaper accounts, magazine reportage, and oral histories, Watson reconstructs a Dickensian drama involving thousands of parading strikers from fifty-one nations, unforgettable acts of cruelty, and even a protracted murder trial that tested the boundaries of free speech. A rousing look at a seminal and overlooked chapter of the past, Bread and Roses is indispensable reading.

Byrkit, James W. Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901–1921. The University of Arizona Press, 2016.

While the Bisbee Deportation was the most notorious of many vigilante actions of its day, it was more than the climax of a labor-management war—it was the point at which Arizona donned the copper collar. That such an event could occur, James Byrkit contends, was not attributable so much to the marshaling of public sentiment against the I.W.W. as to the outright manipulation of the state's political and social climate by Eastern business interests. In Forging the Copper Collar, Byrkit paints a vivid picture of Arizona in the early part of this century. He demonstrates how isolated mining communities were no more than mercantilistic colonies controlled by Eastern power, and how that power wielded control over all the Arizona's affairs—holding back unionism, creating a self-serving tax structure, and summarily expelling dissidents.

Jones, Reece.Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move.Verso, 2017.

In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and the dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the ailing decolonized world, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.

Doig, Ivan. Sweet Thunder.Riverhead Books, 2013.

In the winter of 1920, a quirky bequest draws Morrie Morgan back to Butte, Montana, from a year-long honeymoon with his bride, Grace. But the mansion bestowed by a former boss upon the itinerant charmer, who debuted in Doig’s bestselling "The Whistling Season," promises to be less windfall than money pit. And the town itself, with its polyglot army of miners struggling to extricate themselves from the stranglehold of the ruthless Anaconda Copper Mining Company, seems like the couple’s fast-diminishing finances, on the verge of implosion.

Houston, Robert. Bisbee ‘17.Pantheon Books, 1979.

Bisbee, Arizona, queen of the western copper camps, 1917. The protagonists in a bitter strike: the Wobblies (the IWW), the toughest union in the history of the West; and Harry Wheeler, the last of the two-gun sheriffs. In this class-war western, they face each other down in the streets of Bisbee, pitting a general strike against the largest posse ever assembled. Based on a true story, Bisbee '17 vividly re-creates a West of miners and copper magnates, bindlestiffs and scissorbills, army officers, private detectives, and determined revolutionaries. Against this backdrop runs the story of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, strike organizer from the East, caught between the worlds of her ex-husband—the Bisbee strike leader—and her new lover, an Italian anarchist from New York. As the tumultuous weeks of the strike unfold, she struggles to sort out what she really feels about both of them, and about the West itself.

Schreck, Karen Halvorsen. Broken Ground.Howard Books, 2016.

During the Depression era, Ruth Warren is newly married to Charlie when she finds out he has been killed in an oil rig accident. Ruth relocates for a fresh start to Pasadena, CA to work towards becoming a teacher. She meets Thomas Everly, who teaches her about the social injustices happening to the migrant farmworkers of Mexican decent. Ruth teaches the farmworker’s children during a night school bonding with the families. The camp is raided and many are deported back to Mexico. Ruth and Thomas continue to fight for the workers’ rights.

Szczepanski, Marian. Playing St. Barbara.High Hill Press, 2013.

The secrets, struggles, and self-redemption of a Depression-era coal miner's wife and three daughters play out against a turbulent historical backdrop of Ku Klux Klan intimidation and the 1933 Pennsylvania Mine War. Their intertwined lives eerily mirror the 7th century legend of St. Barbara, patroness of miners, reenacted annually in the town pageant. Tested by scandal, heartbreak, and tragedy, each woman will write her own courageous ending to St. Barbara's story.

Wheeler, Richard. The Richest Hill on Earth. Forge, 2011.

In this captivating historical novel, six-time Spur Award winner Richard S. Wheeler turns his storyteller's eye to a clash of towering ambitions in the American West, when the Copper Kings of Butte, Montana, wrestled each other for control of both the "richest hill on earth" and Montana's fledgling government. The city of Butte looks like a cancerous mélange of smoky mine boilers and rudely constructed sheds when newspaperman John Fellowes Hall arrives on a cold spring day in 1892. Butte may be ugly, but it's the place to get rich.

Luiselli, Valeria. Lost Children Archive. Knopf, 2019.

A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home. Why Apaches? asks the ten-year-old son. Because they were the last of something, answers his father. In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an “immigration crisis”: thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained–or lost in the desert along the way. As the family drives–through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas–we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. They are led, inexorably, to a grand, harrowing adventure–both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations.

Bartoletti, Susan. Kids on Strike!Harcourt Brace and Company, 1999.

By the early 1900s, nearly two million children were working in the United States. From the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the cotton mills of New England, children worked long hours every day under stunningly inhumane conditions. After years and years of oppression, children began to organize and make demands for better wages, fairer housing costs, and safer working environments.

Brimner, Larry. Strike! The Farm Workers’ Fight for Their Rights.Calkins Creek Books, 2014.

In 1965, as the grapes in California's Coachella Valley were ready to harvest, migrant Filipino American workers—who picked and readied the crop for shipping—negotiated a wage of $1.40 per hour, the same wage growers had agreed to pay guest workers from Mexico. But when the Filipino grape pickers moved north to Delano, in the Central Valley, and again asked for $1.40 an hour, the growers refused. The ensuing conflict set off one of the longest and most successful strikes in American history.

Burgan, Michael. Breaker Boys: How a Photograph Helped End Child Labor.Compass Point Books, 2012.

Little boys, some as young as six, spent their long days, not playing or studying, but sorting coal in dusty, loud, and dangerous conditions. Many of these breaker boys worked 10 hours a day, six days a week – all for as little as 45 cents a day. Child labor was common in the United States in the 19th century. It took the compelling, heart-breaking photographs of Lewis Hine and others to bring the harsh working conditions to light. Hine and his fellow Progressives wanted to end child labor. He knew photography would reveal the truth and teach – and change the world.

Larkin, Annie Graeme. Early Bisbee (Images of America).Arcadia Publishing, 2015.

Before Bisbee became a bustling mining camp, it was a haven to Native Americans for centuries. However, their presence brought the intrusion of army scouts and prospectors into the Mule Mountains. The coincidental discovery of vast mineral wealth at the future site of Bisbee permanently affixed the fate of the land forever. Rising from the remote desert was a dynamic mining city, a city that grew into one of the most influential communities in the West. Bisbee was unique in the Old West because of the mixed moral values. High society and the decadent underworld lived in a delicate balance, but a vibrant multicultural community was forged from these social fires.

Markel, Michelle. Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909.Balzar & Bray, 2013.

Ukrainian immigrant Clara Lemlich worked in the garment industry during the day and took classes in the evening. The mistreatment of her fellow laborers inspired Clara to organize a large walkout of women workers. This picture book biography highlights factory labor in the early 1900s and the fight for fair working conditions.

Carney-Coston, Barbara. To the Copper Country: Mihaela’s Journey. Wayne State University Press.

To the Copper Country: Mihaela's Journey is based on the family history of author Barbara Carney-Coston. Her ancestors made the voyage from Croatia to Michigan in the late nineteenth century, a time when many different groups were immigrating to the United States in search of a new life and better opportunities for their families. A common thread runs throughout the accounts of most immigrants, in terms of sacrifice, assimilation, and cultural contribution to a growing America. But Mihaela's story is unique in that her exploration of this new land is critical to her father's survival.

Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Esperanza Rising. Scholastic, 2002.

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico, and that she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstance; Mama's life, and her own, depend on it. Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel that gives voice to those who have historically been denied one.

Hughes, Pat. The Breaker Boys.Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2004.

The son of a wealthy Pennsylvania coal mine operator, Nate Tanner resents being shipped off to boarding school. Anger—mainly at his father and stepmother—is what gets him there and what prevents him from making friends. Then, in the spring of 1897, it gets him kicked out and sent home. To avoid his family, Nate disappears on his bicycle every day. In this way he meets the breaker boys, who do dangerous, dirty work for his father, separating coal from debris. Nate admires these Polish immigrants, especially Johnny, and longs to become his friend. But the only way is for Nate to hide that he is the boss's son. As Nate and Johnny's friendship marches toward the moment of truth, Nate discovers that the mine workers are plotting a strike. Should he warn his family or protect his friend?

Paterson, Katherine. Bread and Roses, Too.Clarion Books, 2006.

After Rosa’s father dies in a mill accident, her mother goes to the streets singing union songs. Both her mother and older sister, Anna, begin marching for worker’s rights and safety at the textile mill. Rosa is scared, especially after she is sent to Vermont with strangers until the strike is over. This is based on the historical 1912 Bread and Roses strike. Many of the workers were immigrants, including Rosa’s Italian family.

Wallace, Sandra Neil. Muckers.Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

Felix "Red" O'Sullivan's world is crumbling around him: the mine that employs most of town is on the brink of closing, threatening to shutter the entire town and his high school with it. But Red's got his own burdens to bear: his older brother, Bobby, died in the war, and he's been struggling to follow in his footsteps ever since. That means assuming Bobby's old position as quarterback and leading the last-ever Muckers team to the championship.