Art Shields: The People’s Scribe

Art Shields covered it all, as a reporter for the Daily Worker on the front lines in Spain, as a labor journalist, and organizer himself.
He covered many key events for the left including the defense of Sacco & Vanzetti, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the organizing drives in Harlan County, the sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, and many more.
Art believed that strong unions were one of the best defenses against fascism, and covered the defense of those trade union leaders under attack during McCarthyism.
Today’s show is an excerpt from a talk last month presented by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives; you’ll find the whole talk here.

On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1926; on this day, labor leader Benjamin Gold began what became a general strike of all furriers in New York City.

photo: Art Shields, right, interviewing young people for an article in the Daily Worker in 1949. | Daily Worker / People’s World Archives | Tamiment Library

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Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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