The YSU History Program, the Center for Working Class Studies, and the Youngstown Solidarity Network warmly invite you to attend a roundtable discussion on Labor and the Working Class in U.S. History. The roundtable will feature Dr. Kenneth Bindas (Kent State University), Dr. Stephanie Shaw (The Ohio State University), and Dr. Gregory S. Wilson (University of Akron). These experts will share their insights into the history of labor and activism in working class communities in the United States, the links between scholarship and activism, and the relevance of these subjects to our region.
This event is free and open to the public. It will be held November 18 at 6:00 pm, at the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor.
Speaker Bios:
Dr. Kenneth Bindas is a Professor of History at Kent State University. Being born and raised into a working-class family in Youngstown and witness to the decline of steel encouraged Dr. Bindas to study the negotiation of power between governments, business, and the people. His research focuses on the Depression era and the 1960s, exploring how the people redefined themselves, their government, and society in this era of change. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society (Kansas Press, 2017).
Dr. Stephanie Shaw is a Professor of History at The Ohio State University. Her research and teaching fields focus on women and Black Americans. She is an award-winning author of numerous publications, including What a Woman ought to Be and Do: Black Professional Women Workers during the Jim Crow Era (University of Chicago Press, 1996) and W.E.B. DuBois and The Souls of Black Folk (University of North Carolina Press, 2015). She is currently completing a book tentatively titled “Grandmothers, Granny Women, and Old Aunts: Rethinking Slave Families and Communities in the Nineteenth Century South.”
Dr. Gregory S. Wilson is a Professor of History at the University of Akron. His research and teaching interests include modern U.S. history, especially public history, political economy, environmental history, Ohio history, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Along with various articles, he is the author of Above the Shots: An Oral History of The Kent State Shootings (Kent State University Press, 2016), Communities Left Behind: The Area Redevelopment Administration, 1945-1965 (University of Tennessee Press, 2009) and the co-author of Ohio: A History of the Buckeye State (Wiley, 2013).