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Web-based research has become an increasingly important tool for making labor studies materials widely available, to educators as well as the general public. The Bridges Center has sponsored or co-sponsored the creation of a number of these websites including The United Farm Workers in Washington State, The Seattle Civil Rights History and Labor History Project, Seattle General Strike Project, the Labor Press Project, the WTO History Project, Workers & Unions of UW, the Communism in Washington State Project, and Union Democracy Reexamined.

The Seattle General Strike Project and Labor Press Project both came out of labor studies courses taught by Professor James Gregory, and contain important research on Northwest Labor History. The Communism in Washington State Project, which came out of a Senior Seminar course also taught by Professor James Gregory, explores the controversial and complex history of the Communist Party in the Pacific Northwest from 1919 to the present. The WTO History Project was created after the WTO Ministerial in Seattle in late 1999 to preserve the stories of the historic protests against free trade. The Workers & Unions of UW is a site that focuses specifically on the University of Washington and the history of its workers and unions.

Pacific Northwest Civil Rights and Labor History Projects

Directed by James N. Gregory, Professor of History

These online oral history and research projects explore the labor and civil rights history of the Pacific Northwest region. The seven projects bring together nearly one hundred oral history interviews and several thousand photographs, documents, and digitized newspaper articles. They also feature more than one hundred research reports written by undergraduate and graduate students who have participated in classes linked to the projects. The civil rights and labor history projects have been profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education (5/24/02) and rated among the 250 most important online U.S. history resources by the authors of History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online. The National Council on Public History calls one project "the most complete set of resources about civil rights struggles for any city outside the South". These projects have been quoted in scholarly studies and major newspapers and they are currently used in numerous history and social studies classes at the college and k-12 level. Collectively, these sites have been visited by more than one million online users.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
This online multimedia project explores the history of movements for racial and economic justice in Seattle and western Washington state. The civil rights movement in Seattle started well before the celebrated struggles in the South in the 1950s and 1960s and the Seattle movement relied not just on African American activists but also Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and some elements of the region's labor movement. This online resource features more than 80 oral history interviews with former activists as well as hundreds of photographs, documents, and research reports.

Communism in Washington State - History and Memory Project
Communism made a larger impact on Washington than almost any other state. "There are forty-seven states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington," Postmaster General James Farley joked in 1936. The remark, for all its exaggeration, had some foundation. This online project explores the controversial history of the Communist Party in the Pacific Northwest from 1919 to the present. It features streaming video oral history interviews with Party members, hundreds of newspaper articles and photographs, and a detailed history of the CP in Washington State.

Seattle General Strike Project
The Seattle General Strike of 1919 was the first city-wide strike anywhere in the United States to be proclaimed a "general strike." This online multi-media project explores the strike and the early 20th century history of labor and radicalism in the state of Washington. It features rare film footage, dozens of research essays, photographs, and documents.

Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project
The Black Panther Party for Self Defense established its Seattle chapter in the spring of 1968. It was one of the first to be created outside of California. This project explores the history of the Seattle Chapter. Included are video oral history interviews with 13 former members, a detailed account of the party's early history, more than 100 photographs, documents, and BPP publications, digitized newspaper articles from 1968-1978, and a copy of the transcripts and exhibits from 1970 Congressional hearings into the activities of the chapter.

Chicano/a Movement in Washington State History Project
This multi-media project documents a generation of activism by Chicano students and community activists from the mid 1960s to the 1980s. It comprises the most comprehensive online resource for exploring the history of Latino activism in the Pacific Northwest. Included are more than a dozen video oral histories, several photographic collections, a detailed history of the movement, rare documents, important essays, and an archive of digitized newspaper articles, nearly 300 in number.

The Labor Press Project
Labor media has been a critical part of American labor movements since the early 19th century and an equally critical part of the history of American journalism. This online project brings together information about the history and ongoing influence of newspapers and periodicals published by unions, labor councils, and radical organizations in the Pacific Northwest.

Workers and Unions of UW
This website provides information about the work experiences of employees at the University of Washington and about the unions and professional associations that represent them.

United Farm Workers in Washington State

The purpose of this project is to share the personal stories of farm workers and those involved in the struggle for farm worker rights in Washington State. This site is by no means comprehensive and is in fact a very small beginning, but we hope that the interviews and photographs spur interest in the rights of farm workers and give a voice to the people who have been key to the success of agricultural business in Washington State — the workers themselves.

Union Democracy Reexamined

The Union Democracy Reexamined project explores the ILWU historical stance and the great strides taken ensure its democratic tradition. It also examines the willingness of the ILWU to affiliate with unions domestically and internationally, which demonstrates a commitment to worldwide labor solidarity. Union rank-and-file efforts have entrenched the same ethic in the character of the ILWU. Furthermore, it also examines controversies in the history of the ILWU for evidence of democratic governance by studying union documents and third party records.

WTO History Project

This project is dedicated to ensuring that any account ever written of the WTO protests be attentive to the range of people who turned out, the varieties of strategies and issues they brought to the streets and meeting rooms, and the coalitions that emerged and failed. By its very existence, the WTO History project ensures that serious scholars and journalists must pay attention to the many facets of this multi-faceted and historical set of world events.

Race, Class, & Work-Life Balance:
Exploring Intersectionality in the Domains of Work and Care

In Fall 2006, the Bridges Center funded a new working group called "Race, Class, & Work-Life Balance: Exploring Intersectionality in the Domains of Work and Care," which will carry the focus on caring labor in to the next several years.