Florida's Working-Class Past.

Florida's Working-Class Past

Robert Cassanello & Mellanie Shell-Weiss, editors

University Press of Florida

15 Northwest 15th St., Gainesville, FL 32611-2079

9780813032832, $69.95, www.upf.com

Most histories focus upon the leaders of a society or a community. But to have a fully informed understanding of the history of these societies and communities attention must be made to the lives of the ordinary people who comprise the vast majority of their members. That's why "Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives On Labor, Race, And Gender From Spanish Florida to The New Immigration" is such a valued contribution to Floridian social, cultural, political, and economic history. Expertly compiled and co-edited by the team of Robert Cassanello (Assistant Professor of History, University of Central Florida) and Melanie Shell-Weiss (Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University), "Florida's Working-Class Past" is an outstanding compilation of nine substantial and superbly written essays that embody original and seminal scholarship by their contributors. The essays range from Tamara Spike's 'St. Augustine's Stomach: Corn and Indian Tribute Labor in Spanish Florida', to Melanie Shell-Weiss' 'I Dreamed I Went to Work: Expanding Southern Unionism in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Lingerie Industry'. Enhanced with an knowledgeable introduction and an epilogue ('Florida and the Contemporary Labor Movement', "Florida's Working-Class Past" is a s seminal contribution recommended for university library American History reference collections in general, and Floridian History Studies reading lists in particular.