🌹 Join us! Labor Event with the MASS MoCA Union 🌹

Dear Berkshires DSA Members,

The Labor Working Group is co-hosting an event with the MASS MoCA Union on Wednesday, June 18, and we'd love to have you join us!

We’ll start at the North Adams Public Library for their talk with author and MCLA emeritus prof Maynard Seider about his book The Gritty Berkshires: A People's History from the Hoosac Tunnel to MASS MoCA. Then, we'll head to PUBLIC eat + drink—with Seider as our special guest!—for an informal conversation about what we learned and its relevance to contemporary labor organizing in the Berkshires.

It'll be a great opportunity to learn about local labor history and connect with our comrades at MASS MoCA.

RSVP here or at the button below before Tuesday, June 17. We hope to see you there!

✨  Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2025

⏰  Time: 6-7:30 pm for Seider's book talk at NAPL; 7:40-9 pm for the hangout at PUBLIC

📍 Locations: North Adams Public Library, 74 Church St, North Adams; PUBLIC eat+drink, 34 Holden Street, North Adams

Contact: [email protected] for questions or to update your attendance.

Book talk event description from the North Adams Public Library: "The Gritty Berkshires" focuses on the immigrants and their descendants who dug the Hoosac Tunnel, worked in the textile mills and the shoe factories of North Berkshire, and produced capacitors at Sprague Electric Company.

On Wednesday, June 18 at 6PM, visit NAPL to join author Maynard Seider for a journey from the first part of the 19th century to today, connecting local issues to changes in the American landscape. Throughout, the activism of local residents will be highlighted, whether it be protesting conditions in an unsafe mill, organizing to form a union, or fighting the closure of a regional hospital.

NAPL, 3rd floor community room. All are welcome. Copies of The Gritty Berkshires will be available for sale & signing. This event is co-hosted with the North Adams Historical Society.

Any questions, please email Assistant Library Director Ryan Miller at [email protected], or give us a call.

P.S. Don't forget to RSVP for the Labor Working Group's next book club session on Thursday, June 26, at 8 pm, taking place on Zoom! We're reading The Groundings with my Brothers by Walter Rodney. Our discussion will be moderated by Labor Working Group Member and Williams College Associate Professor of Africana Studies Armond R. Townes. Check out our IG for more info!