"The Cruel Years: American Voices at the Dawn of the 20th Century," edited by William Loren Katz and Laurie K. Lehman. Apex Press, NYC. 22.95.

On Dec. 4, the Authors' Talk Committee of the DC 37 Education Fund and the Local 1199/SEIU Bread and Roses Cultural Project co-sponsored a book talk.

William Loren Katz discussed "The Cruel Years: American Voices at the Dawn of the 20th Century," which he wrote with his wife, Professor Laurie K. Lehman of Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus.

The event was the first cultural activity jointly sponsored by the two unions, which hope to plan future collaborations.

The talk and accompanying slides gave a look backward into what life and labor were like for working men, women, and children 100 years ago.

The book presents 22 narratives told by average Americans gathered from the authors' extensive research. They include struggling citizens, immigrants, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and others. The many women and children who labored in factories, coal mines and sweatshops are not left out.

One chapter tells us of disillusioned women who joined unions and struck for higher wages and better conditions. Fearing her role in a strike in upstate Troy would get her blacklisted, one laundry worker dictated her memoir to a sympathetic female reporter but asked that her name be withheld.

Following are excerpts:
"The table starchers and the machine starchers held a meeting and agreed that we could not stand a pay reduction of fifty percent. Small groups of girls were being discharged and laid off.

"We appointed a committee to call on the head of the firm. He refused to let the committee into his office. Then we struck.

"We have been out ever since. We picketed the factories and tried by all peaceable means to prevent the non-union girls hired to take our places from entering.

"The head of my firm has helped build two churches. He is very much looked up to by the best people in Troy."

These personal narratives are made real and poignant through rare photographs vividly depicting American working people at the dawn of the 20th century.

If we can bear witness to oppression and injustice in our country as we know it today, we can imagine an earlier period in our society that was even harsher for ordinary working men and women, immigrants, minorities, and children.

In "The Cruel Years," our American history becomes real and more significant through the voices of these individuals -22 people just like us.

—Susan Bailey
DC 37 Education Fund
Authors' Talk Committee