Labor Day, celebrated this year on September 3, is the national holiday during which we pay tribute to the social and economic contributions of American workers. The American workforce is a focus of some of the research conducted by graduate students at the University of Missouri and documented in theses and dissertations available in MOspace, the University of Missouri institutional repository. Below are examples of theses and dissertations from a range of departments which feature informative perspectives on the economic and social progress of the labor movement and focus on the expanding workforce in American society.
- Coberly, Beverly A. Age generations in the workplace: an organization system type and space use preference system analysis. 2017. (Architectural Studies)
- Christ, Stephen R. Social organization of authenticity in Mexican restaurants. 2015. (Sociology)
- Hodges, Leslie. Three essays on the labor market determinants of access to employee benefits. 2017. (Public Administration)
- Kateman, Michael. Three tears for the red, white, and blue: self-realization of racial identity as a higher education administrator. 2017. (Education)
- Lewis, William G. Valley of industry: developing a regional economy in the post Jefferson’s Embargo Ohio Valley. 2014. (History)
- Liu, Yandi. Two empirical analyses of the minimum wage impacts on employment. 2015. (Economics)
- McClellan, Meghan. Visual humor: female photographers and modern American womanhood, 1860-1915. 2017. (Art History and Archaeology)
- Phillips, Angela Lee. Labor union communication: effect of labor media on local union vote choice. 2015. (Communication)
- Sankey, Marcia. Rural Missouri high school principals’ perceptions of highly effective teachers: does it align with national research? 2017 (Education)
- Shi, Shishan. Three essays on educator labor markets: evidence from Missouri public schools. 2013. (Economics)
- Snodgrass, William M. Order in the marketplace: commercial organizations in antebellum St. Louis. 2013. (History)
In MOspace you also will find older theses and dissertations. We are adding these as part of an ongoing project to digitize and provide online access to pre-1978 theses and dissertations. An interesting example is a 1915 thesis from the Department of Sociology. As part of this thesis, University of Missouri student Mabel Griffith researched the working conditions of women in the laundry industry in Columbia. In her study, Griffith surveyed thirty-one women in the laundry industry. She benefited from access to pay-roll records in order to tell the story of the work and home life of these wage-earning women. Read more in Women in the laundry industry in Columbia.
Learn more by checking out these and other theses and dissertations in MOspace.