No other form could capture the history of the labor movement better
than the songs sung in times both bitter and courageous by coal miners
and textile workers, railroad men and steelworkers, farmers, seamen, and
cow-hands as they worked to supply the nation's needs and as they worked
to defeat political and industrial tyranny, child labor, hunger,
poverty, and unemployment. This collection includes a hundred songs of
the people, as they have been sung at one time or another on the
workers' long road toward freedom and justice, together with the stories
of the genuine situations from which they sprang.
They are straight trade union songs and ditties; specific songs of
miners, textile workers, steel, and railway workers and farmers; typical
working songs of sailors, canalers, lumberjacks, and cowboys; songs of
the hardships that working men and women have to face during times of
depression; philosophic songs and ironic comments on the economic
system; songs that grew out of the fight against slavery; and songs
expressing the dreams of people of many lands throughout the ages. Often
set to tunes of familiar folk songs, popular songs, and gospel hymns,
these are the songs by which unions organized and which the members of
each labor group sang out. They are songs sung to words by itinerant
wanderers, unlettered farmers, and factory hands; songs by Joe Hill,
Ralph Chaplin, Joe Glazer, Merle Traive, Woody Guthrie, the Almanac
Singers; songs by famous poets such as Burns and Blake. Most of the
songs are American in origin. A few, drawn from England, Scotland,
Ireland, France, Germany, Israel, and the Philippines, remind us that
the fight for freedom knows no boundaries. The songs are presented with
simple piano accompaniments and guitar chords to encourage their use in
group singing.
The songs of work and the songs of protest are, in a very important
sense, the songs of the New World, capturing the stirring sounds and
deep emotions of people over hundreds of years on the march to build a
better world. Whether you are looking for material for singing or
whether you are looking for material on the struggles of the labor
movement, there will be much in this important collection for song and
for thought.
