A brief history of American workers from 1800-2000. Not primarily an institutional history, that is, a history of unions, although unions figure prominently where appropriate. For the most part, this is about the lives of ordinary workers, people like you and me, and how they struggled to build better lives for themselves in changing and often hostile circumstances. Dr. Eric Leif Davin has taught labor history at the University of Pittsburgh for more than 20 years and won the Eugene V. Debs Award for his writing on labor history.