Event Announcement: Ben Zdencanovic, “The CIO and the World: Research in 1940s Labor Internationalism and Social Politics”

Ben Zdencanovic, a doctoral student in the history department at the Yale University, will present an overview of his current research at a brown-bag lecture at noon on Thursday, October 15, in the Reuther Conference Room of the Walter P. Reuther Library.

His presentation, “The CIO and the World: Research in 1940s Labor Internationalism and Social Politics at the Reuther Library,” explores changes in postwar politics in the United States and abroad. Federal agencies and member unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations moved away from New Deal social reformism, policy experimentation, labor policy, and government intervention in the economy which had marked the Depression Era. A comparative approach reveals significant diversions in the American setting from social democratic models in the United Kingdom and Western Europe.

Zdencanovic’s research visit is supported through a Sam Fishman Travel Grant from the Reuther Library. These annual grants provide up to $1,000 to support travel to Detroit to access archival records of the American labor movement in the Reuther Library. The award is named in honor of Sam Fishman, a former UAW and Michigan AFL-CIO leader. For further information, please contact Erik Nordberg, Reuther Library Director, at 313-577-4024.