Box 25
eBook - ePub

Box 25

Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal

  1. 192 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Box 25

Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal

About this book

When acclaimed labor historian Julie Greene researched her book The Canal Builders, which went on to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, she explored a cache of first-person essays written in 1963 by the Afro-Caribbean people, mainly Jamaican and Barbadian, who migrated to the Isthmus of Panama to work as diggers, track shifters, or domestic servants in the Canal Zone. Held at the Library of Congress and stored in Box 25 of the Isthmian Historical Society Collection, the essays constitute the best primary source in existence on Caribbean workers' experiences during the construction project.

Now Greene returns to this fascinating archive, and in this book, shares what it was like to be a migrant laborer on the construction of the Panama Canal. Caribbean workers faced life-threatening illnesses, accidents, racial discrimination, and culture clashes as well as opportunities to materially improve their lives. Greene offers new details on the strategies of the people who built the canal and examines how colonialism, xenophobia, and racism shaped the process of writing and archiving the testimonies into Box 25.

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Yes, you can access Box 25 by Julie Greene, Lisa Adams in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. List of Illustrations
  8. Maps
  9. Introduction
  10. Chapter One: Colonial Power and the Building of Box 25
  11. Chapter Two: Homelands
  12. Chapter Three: Encountering Panama
  13. Chapter Four: Caribbean Identities
  14. Chapter Five: The Government’s Men
  15. Chapter Six: The Long Life of the Archive
  16. Conclusion: Silences That Speak
  17. Acknowledgments
  18. Appendix: List of Workers with Essays in the Isthmian Historical Society Competition
  19. Notes
  20. Index