Fading American Dream

For most of us, Labor Day has become the last big party weekend of summer. It's celebrated with picnics, not parades. Its connection to labor unions and the history of labor is all but forgotten.

Of course, we've never had an easy relationship with Labor in this country. International Labor Day is on May 1st - a day chosen in recognition of the Haymarket Riots in Chicago. If you think it's odd that the rest of the world celebrates a seminal event in American Labor history while we do not, it's not as odd as having our own Labor Day designated in honor of one of Labor's big defeats.

Our Labor Day is set in September in honor of the Pullman Strike - which was a defeat for Labor as the government stepped in and intervened on behalf of the Pullman company, forcing the workers back to work. Yet that is the event that is commemorated by the US Labor Day. It's appropriate, though, since our government has long had a hostile relationship with Labor.

Small wonder then that Labor is in decline and the American Dream is fading with it. In that light, then, I prepared a set with songs inspired by the Labor movement and by the state of the Worker. The music is is varied, as you can see from two samples from the set.


 

 Hazel Dickens was the voice of the miner's union. A bluegrass singer from a West Virginia mining family, she wrote the soundtrack to the history of coal mining. She has sung most of the great labor songs from Which Side Are You On and Fire in the Hole to Black Lung and Roll the Union On.


 

 Street Dogs is a Boston Punk band with a working class worldview and an activist heart. While their music is a world apart from Hazel Dickins, they are right beside her in spirit and heart.