Fight Like Hell
The Untold History of American Labor
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Table of Contents
About The Book
Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment workers braving deadly conditions for a sliver of independence. Asian American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America’s civil rights movement. These are only some of the heroes who propelled American labor’s relentless push for fairness and equal protection under the law.
The names and faces of countless silenced, misrepresented, or forgotten leaders have been erased by time as a privileged few decide which stories get cut from the final copy: those of women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, sex workers, prisoners, and the poor. In this definitive and assiduously researched “thought-provoking must-read” (Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO president), Teen Vogue columnist and independent labor reporter Kim Kelly excavates that untold history and shows how the rights the American worker has today—the forty-hour workweek, workplace-safety standards, restrictions on child labor, protection from harassment and discrimination on the job—were earned with literal blood, sweat, and tears.
Fight Like Hell comes at a time of economic reckoning in America. From Amazon’s warehouses to Starbucks cafes, Appalachian coal mines to the sex workers of Portland’s Stripper Strike, interest in organized labor is at a fever pitch not seen since the early 1960s. Inspirational, intersectional, and full of crucial lessons from the past, Fight Like Hell is “essential reading for anyone who believes that workers should control their fate” (Shane Burley, author of Why We Fight).
About The Author
Kim Kelly is a labor reporter for In These Times magazine and has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018. Her writing on labor, class, politics, disability, and culture has appeared in The Nation, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Baffler, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and many others. Kelly has also worked as a video correspondent for More Perfect Union, The Real News Network, and Means TV. Previously, she was the heavy metal editor at Noisey, Vice’s music vertical, and helped organize the Vice union. A third-generation union member, she served three terms as an elected councilperson for the Writers Guild of America, East Council. Her first book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, was published in 2022. She was born in the heart of the South Jersey Pine Barrens and currently lives in Philadelphia with a hard-workin’ man, a couple of taxidermy bears, and way too many books.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers (August 29, 2023)
- Length: 448 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982171063
Raves and Reviews
“Kelly unearths the stories of the people—farm laborers, domestic workers, factory employees—behind some of the labor movement’s biggest successes.”
—The New York Times
“Kim Kelly's debut is a knockout... Catalyzed by a passionate voice and brisk pacing, Fight Like Hell will leave you with a renewed sense of readiness in your bones.”
—Morgan Jerkins, New York Times Bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing, Wandering in Strange Lands, and Caul Baby
“You’ll never look at American history the same way again.”
—Esquire
“As Kim Kelly writes in her book, every story is a labor story. [Fight Like Hell] offers a fuller picture of the history of labor in America and shows how fights previously not considered labor fights were in fact battles for workers' rights, whether it was abolishing slavery, liberating women, ensuring those disabled by work got fair treatment and those born with disabilities had a chance at a fair wage.”
—Eric Garcia, author of We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation
“Fight Like Hell is the most important book on labor published in a generation."
—Shane Burley, author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse
“In FIGHT LIKE HELL you'll find the true stories of people who have fought to win a better world for themselves and everyone else who has to work for a living.”
—Jeremy Brecher, author of National Bestseller Strike!
“In this remarkable interweaving of past and present, Kim Kelly brings America’s rich (and bloody) labor history, its most marginalized workers, and their most recent battles to vivid life [...] At once urgent and insightful, FIGHT LIKE HELL not only informs, it inspires.”
—Joseph A. McCartin, Executive Director, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor & the Working Poor, Georgetown University
“A rousing look at the contributions of marginalized groups to the U.S. labor movement [and] a powerful call for today’s workers to fight for their rights.”
—Publisher's Weekly
“Freshly inclusive [...] an excellent entry point for a new understanding of work in America.”
—Booklist
“A well-reasoned argument for restoring unions to their former role in the lives of American workers.”
—Kirkus
“Meticulously researched and beautifully told, [in FIGHT LIKE HELL] Kim Kelly has established herself as a true champion for the working class.”
—Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO President
“Kim Kelly throws wide the doors to inspire all of us to seize power for ourselves by showing how—yesterday and today—the oppressed overlooked, the outcasts and the misfits, shaped history. ”
—Sara Nelson, International President, Association of of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO
“Kim Kelly has written the perfect book for the era of the "Great Resignation.” Filled with revolutionary spirit, Fight Like Hell highlights the contributions of labor leaders both known and obscure, deftly connecting the struggles of the past to the present while proving that every story is a labor story when workers matter. ”
—Elizabeth Catte, historian and author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia and Pure America: Eugenics and The Making of Modern Virginia
“Kim Kelly is a fresh and compelling voice telling the critical stories of working families that so many others ignore. The struggles of workers to form and build their unions in the face of exploitation and abuse have gone untold for far too long. This book breaks through that silence and brings the voices of workers and their families to the forefront where they belong.”
—Cecil Roberts, International President, United Mine Workers of America
“The stories Kim Kelly tells provide examples of inspiration and often hope—at a time when the inequalities and injustices that working people endure must no longer be tolerated. And they remind us that nothing changes unless we fight like hell for it.”
—Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Fight Like Hell Trade Paperback 9781982171063
- Author Photo (jpg): Kim Kelly Photograph by Liz Kross(0.1 MB)
Any use of an author photo must include its respective photo credit
