Description
Book Synopsis"We seek to inform as well as to celebrate. The best posters about American workers and the jobs at which they labor make up a visually fascinating body of work that rewards our attention. The posters were produced with a dual purpose: to entertain...
Trade Review"Agitate! Educate! Organize! is as valuable for the roadmap it offers for labor's future as it is a treasure-trove of labor's past. I've read my share of books of social movement posters, and Agitate! Educate! Organize! is in a class by itself." -- Randy Shaw, author of Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century
"This book features more than 250 posters to come out of the American labor movement, along with a commentary on the impact of activist art." -- How, October 2009
"This valuable document collects a century of posters designed by labor organizers, for purposes ranging from workplace safety to equal pay for women.... Some are confrontational, like a Farm Labor Organizing poster featuring a drawing of a Campbell's soup can with a label reading 'Condemned: Cream of Exploitation.' A 1976 poster designed by Barbara Morgan bears the headline 'Your Job is Killing You,' followed by statistics comparing the number of Americans killed on the job with the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Posters about women workers feature original Rosie the Riveter designs, as well as one stating 'This Dept. Has Gone _____ Days With No Sexual Harassment.'... It's simply fascinating viewing that produces a sharp sense of nostalgia for a time when powerful visual art could lead to real change for the victimized."
