Article Critique

IN 2008 George Washington University and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters collaborated to found a research program exploring the role of the American labor movement in late 19th-century America. Now they have created the James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor in Modern American Labor History–the nation’s first chair in labor history. In February longtime labor historian Eric Arnesen, whose research has often focused on African-American workers, was appointed to the position. Arnesen is currently completing a study of A. Philip Randolph, who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925 and organized the 1963 March on Washington. In 2015 the Teamsters emerged from a period of federal supervision resulting from an agreement reached in 1989 to settle charges of corruption and racketeering (although some independent review is still required). The chair is named for Jimmy Hoffa, the controversial Teamsters president (1957-71) who vanished without a trace in 1975.