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Howard Zinn

1999-2000: The US university living wage campaign

Howard Zinn speaks, with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in background

Howard Zinn's brief history of the joint campaign between American university students and staff to win a living wage for all campus employees.

Against a background of several victories in workplace organisation in the US – notably for California cleaners, Boeing workers and Los Angeles health employees - a movement of students and university staff began coming together.

1970-1978: The US prisoners' movement

george-jackson-san-quentin.jpg

Howard Zinn's history of the movement of US prisoners and supporters on the outside against poor conditions and ill-treatment.

The movement refelected the general upsurge in revolutionary activity in the US at the time

1891: Miners against prison labour

American miner in 1890

Howard Zinn's account of American miners' struggles against the use of slave prison labour.

There were eruptions against the convict labour system in the South, in which prisoners were leased in slave labour to corporations, used thus to depress the general level of wages and also to break strikes.

1839-1846: The Anti-Renter movement

Howard Zinn's short history of the Anti-Renter movement against the patroonship system, created in the 1660s when the Dutch ruled New York.

The rich had vast land holdings and the tenants paid taxes and rents. The movement grew to 10,000 men and was finally put down by a cavalry unit of 3,000 who came up from New York City.

1877: The Great Railroad Strike

Workers blockade an engine in the 1877 strike - illustrated in Harpers magazine

Howard Zinn's short history of the biggest industrial dispute in American history by that time, shutting down half the country's rail network.

Beginning with opposition to wage cuts and poor conditions the strikes led to near-insurrections in parts of Pennsylvania. Heavy repression hit the strikers and other American workers and despite winning some concessions eventually the strikes were broken, leaving 100 dead.

1860: The Lynn shoe strike

Howard Zinn's history of the strike of 20,000 US shoe manufacturing workers - men and women - in New England. Lasting several weeks, the strike won wage increases for the poorly-paid workers.

1975: The Mayaguez Affair

US troops invade

Historian Howard Zinn's account of the brief but disatrous invasion of a Cambodian island by a small US force which suffered massive casualties.

The invasion was in response to Cambodia holding the crew of an American cargo ship, with the intention of re-asserting US military dominance in the wake of its defeat in Vietnam.

1833-1849: The Dorr Rebellion

Thomas W Dorr

Howard Zinn's history of a movement in the United States against a political system which permitted the vote only to landowners. Drafting their own “People’s Convention” the rebels were let down by some of their own ideas, such as racism, and were put down by force.

Taking the case to the Supreme Court, the precedent was then set that the Court should not meddle in politics.

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