Philip Taft Labor History Book Award

The Philip Taft Labor History Award competition is open to any book or books published in the 2025 calendar year relating to the history of American Labor. 

The committee defines "labor history" in a broad sense to include the history of workers (free and unfree, organized and unorganized), their institutions, and their workplaces, as well as the broader historical trends that have shaped working-class life, including but not limited to: immigration, slavery, community, the state, race, gender, and ethnicity.

A hard copy of each nominated book should be sent directly to each member of the Award Committee at the address listed in the Submission Guidelines. The Award is offered by the ILR School at Cornell University, in cooperation with the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA).

Please nominate books no later than December 15, 2025.   We will accept page proofs for books published during the last two weeks of December. Please check the Submission Guidelines for full nomination information.  The winner of this year's prize will be announced at the 2026 LAWCHA annual meeting.

The 2025 Taft Labor History Award winner is Seth Rockman’s book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery, published by the University of Chicago Press. A beautifully written book, Plantation Goods weaves together the northern workers who produced goods meant for use by Southern enslaved workers, the businessmen who ran those factories as well as those who advertised and sold the goods to Southern states, and the work lives of the enslaved people who used those goods. Both the scope of the book and its grounding in the tactile details of daily life make this a truly stunning book, both provocative and inspiring.

Ileen A. DeVault
Chair, Philip Taft Labor History Award Committee