GEOG 347: Geographies of Class I

1. GEOG 347: Geographies of Class I "Class...is about peoplehood, multiple identities, and the places in a community that nurture democratic aspiration and capacity, as well as about relations to the means of production." -Evans and Boyte, p.149

2. Evans & Boyte (1984): Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change • Free Spaces as "settings between private lives and large-scale institutions where ordinary citizens can act with dignity, independence, and vision...voluntary forms of association" (p.17). • Where ordinary people gain the courage, confidence, and ability to act politically • Emphasis on community, participation, citizenship • Examples? In what sense are these considedered spaces?

3. Boyte and Evans on Class • Class as socially constructed category that emerged in 1770s to 1830s. • Marxist definition of class as objective category: class tied to ownership of means of production (land-landlord; capital-capitalist; labor-worker) • Class also as subjective category: rooted in feeling, ideology, solidarity, organization • Marx: class consciousness comes from abandoning other identities vs. Evans and Boyte: class is rooted in identity, community

4. History of U.S. Labor Organizing • Early 1800s: Craft/artisan guilds and unions • 1880s: Knights of Labor • 1890s-1920s: American Federation of Labor (AFL) • 1930s to 1950s: Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) • 1955: AFL Merges with CIO • 1960s: Service industry organizing • 1970s: decline in union movement begins What was at stake/gained in union struggles?

5. U.S. Union Density, 1880-2000 Source: http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/09/09/labor%E2%80%99s-laboring-effort/

9. Labor Legislation by State