My earlier work on labor history left me with a desire to find or invent some way to do it that included those who had lived the experiences I was studying.[1] In collaboration with community organizer Jan Stackhouse and video documentarian Jerry Lombardi, in 1979 I initiated the Brass Workers History Project in western Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Connecticut Humanities Council, the project involved participation of more than 200 workers and community members who provided documents, participated in interviews, served on an advisory committee, and reviewed the project’s products.[2]
In 1982 we published Brass Valley: The Story Of Working People’s Lives And Struggles In An American Industrial Region.[3] It utilized interviews, photos, and memorabilia to provide a “family album” for the brass worker community and a scholarship-based interpretation of its history. In 1984 the Brass Workers History Project produced the 90-minute Connecticut Public Television documentary Brass Valley for which I served as writer and historian.
[1] Jeremy Brecher, “The Brass Workers History Project,” in Jean J. Schensul et al, Using Ethnographic Data (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 1999) p. 131.
[2] Jean J. Schensul, pp. 130-149.
[3] The Brass Workers History Project, Brass Valley: The Story Of Working People’s Lives And Struggles In An American Industrial Region (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982).