Wobblies, pile butts, and other heroes

by Archie Green

In this culmination of his half-century of involvement with American workers and their traditions, Archie Green explores occupational expression - stories, songs, customs, beliefs, artifacts - on the job and in institutions such as trade unions. Combining ethnographic description with analysis drawn from folklore, history, literary criticism, art history, linguistics, and philosophy, Green presents ten case studies in which he reflects on single words as social texts ("Wobbly," "fink") and clustered words within anecdotes, tales, and ballads ("John Henry," Homestead's strike songs, job yarns about cuckoldry and sexual impotence, and pile-driving traditions, for example). Drawing on Green's own experience as a shipwright and carpenter, the book will appeal both to workers curious about their history and traditions and to academicians who study the workforce and labor process.