American Worker/Film Study

Catalog description

This course studies the American working class since the late Nineteenth Century and how Hollywood film has depicted the struggle of working people to enhance their lives within the capitalist system. The course will explore through lecture, film and readings such topics as the rise of the union movement; the great strikes; ideological controversy within the labor movement; and the role played by African-Americans, women, immigrants and radicals in working class history. Students will view in class major films dealing with the working class, such as The Molly Maguires, Matewan, The Grapes of Wrath, On the Waterfront, Salt of the Earth, and Norma Rae.