Dear Diary:
As I was preparing to teach “Sociology of Work and Family,†I realized that my first night of class would be the Monday before Labor Day.
Since it is about the work environment in factories and how unions started, I decided to talk for a few minutes about how my grandmother, who was not quite 4 in the summer of 1904, was lifted into the air by Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate for president. He had been standing on a soapbox in Union Square addressing a crowd about why they should vote for him, and he came by and praised her as he held her aloft.
I hesitated as I wrote my notes, when I realized that my students would know what Union Square was but would probably have no idea what a soapbox was. Do they still have wooden soapboxes?
I guess I'll compare her experience to an Occupy Wall Street gathering.
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