Discover the interconnectedness of peddling and factory work, the surprising origins of the Aloha shirt, and the key role Syrian workers played in major labor actions like the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Associate Professor of History at the University of California and author of "Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work, and the Syrian American Working Class" Dr. Stacy D. Fahrenthold discusses her work which offers a class-conscious history of the Syrian-American diaspora, a community of about half a million people in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. While the "peddler" is often the central figure and icon of this diaspora's economic history for over a century, Fahrenthold shifts the focus to the new immigrants who came to the U.S. and found work in the textile industries. The conversation explores the hidden role of Syrian-American garment workers, particularly young women, who produced goods like "kimonos", undergarments, stockings, and household textiles.
Discover the interconnectedness of peddling and factory work, the surprising origins of the Aloha shirt, and the key role Syrian workers played in major labor actions like the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Associate Professor of History at the University of California and author of "Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work, and the Syrian American Working Class" Dr. Stacy D. Fahrenthold discusses her work which offers a class-conscious history of the Syrian-American diaspora, a community of about half a million people in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. While the "peddler" is often the central figure and icon of this diaspora's economic history for over a century, Fahrenthold shifts the focus to the new immigrants who came to the U.S. and found work in the textile industries. The conversation explores the hidden role of Syrian-American garment workers, particularly young women, who produced goods like "kimonos", undergarments, stockings, and household textiles.
0:00 Introducing Unmentionables & Shifting the Icon from Peddler to Laborer
0:40 Lawrence, Massachusetts: The Second Largest Arab-American Community
1:48 Who Was The Syrian American Working Class?
2:41 The Gap in Arab-American Diaspora History
3:14 Textiles and Garment Work
4:50 The Peddler: Icon vs Reality
7:12 Labor Experience In The U.S. vs Greater Syria
8:50 Skilled Silk Weavers and First-Time Proletarians
10:14 Syrian Workers and Global Labor Movements
11:27 The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912
15:09 Dynamite, Arrests and Militarization of the Syrian Neighborhood
19:16 Scale of Syrian Immigration Compared to Other Groups
22:14 The Majority of Textile Workers Were Women
24:43 The Connection to the Silk Industry in Mount Lebanon
27:28 A Look Inside a Syrian-American Garment Factory
29:04 The Kimono: Branding and Orientalism
31:50 The Effacement of Origins in the Marketplace
35:36 Economic and Social Mobility For Syrian-American Families
39:03 The Legacy of Syrian-American Textile Companies
40:01 The Lebanese Origins of The Aloha Shirt
43:14 Marghab Linen and Racial Stereotyping
44:22 Geographic Dispersion of Syrian Communities
47:09 Illicit Activity and Contraband in the Diaspora
49:22 Recommended Readings In Arab-American History
Stacy Fahrenthold is a historian of the modern Middle East specializing in labor migration; displacement/refugees; border studies; and diasporas within and from the region. Her new book "Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work, and the Syrian American Working Class" examines how Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian immigrant workers navigated processes of racialization, immigration restriction, and labor contestation in the textile industries of the Atlantic world. It recently received the Middle East Studies Association's 2025 Nikki Keddie Award for "outstanding scholarly work in religion, revolution, and/or society." Her award-winning first book, "Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora" examines the politics of Syrian and Lebanese migration to the Americas during the First World War, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise of European Mandates in the Middle East. Fahrenthold is Associate Editor of Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Migration Studies.
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