While digesting a full menu of readings in labor history from the Gilded Age to the Gig economy, students fashioned their own original research projects and subsequently wrote 20-page essays based on a deep dive into the Robert M. Wagner Papers and surrounding Great Depression-New Deal Era. Topics included the ultimately frustrated efforts at the time to pass national health insurance, secure an anti-lynching bill, as well as an exploration of the relationship between contemporary domestic liberal initiatives and the international Zionist initiative to secure a Jewish homeland. Carefully examining Sen. Wagner’s legislative efforts and correspondence during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, each student’s project is accompanied by relevant contemporary illustrations.
Medicare for None: Robert Wagner’s 1939 Health Reform and the Spectrum of Possibility. Phil LaRue
Robert F. Wagner’s Labor Zionism: A Cataract in the Liberal Vision. Ian DeHaven
Rope, Riot, and Pen: Senator Robert F. Wagner’s Expansion of U.S. Civil Rights. Tom Bell