Scholarship

2022
Nichols, Shaun S.Review of Dissenting Traditions: Essays on Bryan D. Palmer, Marxism, and History, Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith eds.Labour / Le Travail 90 (2022): 296-298. Publisher's Version
History is Rich
Nichols, Shaun S. History is Rich. [An illustrated introduction to the history of the United States economy for kids ages 6-12! ]: Honest History, 2022. Publisher's Version
2020
Harmonious Insurrections: ‘Labor Progressivism’ and Working-Class Power in Washington State, 1886–1919
Nichols, Shaun S.Harmonious Insurrections: ‘Labor Progressivism’ and Working-Class Power in Washington State, 1886–1919.” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 17, no. 2 (2020): 47-72. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Exceptionalism has long defined our understanding of the rise of progressive politics in the early twentieth-century United States. While industrialized European nations blazed the path of social democracy, in the United States, it is argued, “progressivism” merely legitimized middle-class cultural hegemony, social engineering, and the subversion of working-class power. In this era, however, social reform was a distinctly state-led phenomenon, only rarely taken up by the federal Congress. As such, by analyzing labor protest at the level of the state—in this case, Washington—a different interpretation emerges. American “progressivism” was neither exceptionally repressive nor of little interest to labor. In fact, espousing a language of progress, the common good, and the duty of the state to promote “social harmony,” Washington workers actively drew on “progressive” ideas in their struggles to tame the excesses of industrial capitalism. This ideology of “labor progressivism” became the foundation for unprecedented working-class power.
2019
Nichols, Shaun S.Globalization from The Ground Up: International Labor Unionism and the Transformation of Postwar U.S. Business .” Presented at the Business History Conference, Cartegena, Colombia, Mar. 16, 2019.
2017
Review of Nina Sankovitch, The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family
Nichols, Shaun S.Review of Nina Sankovitch, The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family.” Business History Review 91, no. 4 (2017): 822-825. Publisher's Version
Crisis Capital: Industrial Massachusetts and the Making of Global Capitalism, 1865–Present
Nichols, Shaun S.Crisis Capital: Industrial Massachusetts and the Making of Global Capitalism, 1865–Present.” Enterprise & Society 18, no. 4 (2017): 795-809. Publisher's Version
Nichols, Shaun S.Captive Minds and Footloose Capital: Making Transnational Capitalism in Postwar America.” Invited Panelist, Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), New Orleans, Louisiana, Apr. 7, 2017.
Nichols, Shaun S.Global Capitalism, Local Industry, and the Making (and Re-Making) of the Cambridge Economy.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Cambridge Historical Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mar. 22, 2017. News Article
Nichols, Shaun S.Crisis Capital: Industrial Massachusetts and the Making of Global Capitalism.” Presented at the Krooss Dissertation Prize Plenary Session, Business History Conference, Denver Colorado, Apr. 1, 2017.
2016
Nichols, Shaun S.In Constant Turmoil’?: Global Labor Migration and Working-Class Conflict in Industrial Massachusetts, 1865-1900.” Presented at the Histories of Capitalism Conference, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Oct. 1, 2016.
Nichols, Shaun S.Economies in Motion: Re-thinking the “Industrial Revolution” in Massachusetts.” Presented at the Business History Conference, Portland, Oregon, Apr. 2, 2016.
Review of Michael Dennis, Blood on Steel: Chicago Steelworkers and the Strike of 1937
Nichols, Shaun S.Review of Michael Dennis, Blood on Steel: Chicago Steelworkers and the Strike of 1937.” Business History Review 90, no. 1 (2016): 377-380. Publisher's Version
2015
Nichols, Shaun S.Crisis and Capital: Demystifying the ‘Industrial Revolution’ in Massachusetts, 1813-1873.” Presented at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Oct. 30, 2015.
Thomas Piketty and the Poverty of Inequality
Nichols, Shaun S. “Thomas Piketty and the Poverty of Inequality.” Commentary on Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the Twenty First Century,” Presented at the Harvard Faculty Club, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 6, 2015. Full Text
Nichols, Shaun S. “Industrial Twilight?: Azorean Migration, Business Conglomeration, and the 1973 Crisis in Massachusetts.” Joint Meeting of the Business History Conference and European Business History Association. Miami, Florida, June 26, 2015.
Nichols, Shaun S. “Friend or Foe?: Cross-Class Alliances and the War on Urban Poverty.” Panelist, with Casey Bohlen (Harvard), Claire Dunning (Harvard), Louis Hyman (Cornell), and Jefferson Cowie (Cornell) at the Joint Conference of the Labor and Working-Class History Association and the WCSA. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, May 29, 2015. Conference EntryAbstract

Paper: "Creative Destruction from the Ground Up: The Struggle for a New Industrial Regime in Massachusetts"

Review of Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century, Marcel van der Linden and Karl Heinz Roth, eds.
Nichols, Shaun S. “Review of Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century, Marcel van der Linden and Karl Heinz Roth, eds.Labour / Le Travail (Spring 2015), no. 75 (2015): 333-335. Publisher's VersionAbstract
2014
Nichols, Shaun S. “Free Migration, Free Trade, and Labor Internationalism in Postwar Massachusetts.” Presented at the Twentieth Century United States Dissertation Workshop, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dec. 9, 2014.

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