Michelle Haberland
Ph.D., Tulane University, 2001
M.A., University of Florida, 1993
B.A., University of Florida, 1990
Research and Teaching Fields: Labor History, Southern History, Gender/Women's History, African American History, Recent American History
Research Interests:
I'm currently working on a book entitled, Striking Beauties: Garment Workers in the United States South, 1937 - 1980 . Based on oral histories and archival research, this will be the first book-length examination of the southern apparel industry, an industry that has been overlooked by most scholars. In addition to chronicling the movement of the apparel industry to southern communities and explaining the processes of segregation and desegregation by race and gender, Striking Beauties also traces the transition from farm to factory work across the rural South and explores efforts to organize southern women workers. The history of boycotts in the apparel industry is particularly interesting to me as it reveals a relationship between consumption, production and organization among southern garment workers. The final chapter of the manuscript explains how the southern communities that had once welcomed apparel factories and their promises of jobs and economic salvation suffered as the factories began to close their doors forever, leaving more and more women stitchers unemployed. Meanwhile, communities in Mexico and other Latin American countries welcomed the apparel industry and looked forward to the fulfillment of the same promises of jobs and economic salvation that had once seemed to brighten the future of the South.
Upper Division & Graduate Courses:
HIST/AMST 4132: Recent America, US Since 1945
HIST 4135: The United States in the 1960s
HIST 4635: Globalization & Its Discontents: U.S. Labor & Capital in the 20 th Century (senior seminar)
HIST 5232/G: Working Class History in the United States
HIST 5138/G: The New South
Additional Links: http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~mah
Address & Contact Information:
1208 Forest Building
PO Box 8054
Department of History
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460-8054
Tel.: (912) 478-1867
Email: mah@georgiasouthern.edu
Fax: (912) 478-0377
