Historian, Writer, and Educator.
Gwen is a PhD candidate in U.S. History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a historian of U.S. labor and leisure, with interests in work, play, class, community, identity, race, gender, and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the American West. Her current research uses park spaces in Butte, Montana, including the Columbia Gardens amusement park (1884-1973) and plans for new parks to come from Superfund cleanup, to investigate the socio-environmental history of mining, land use, and culture from the 1870s to the present.
my latest work online:
On Minor League Baseball Unionization:
On the other hand, it is surprising that the minor leagues have not yet unionized, because they so often function as the laboratory for Major League Baseball’s experiments. Most minor league players do not make the majors and they need to make ends meet. Without protections, conditions have declined relative to the financial circumstances of a minor league player 60 years ago, even as the demands on them in terms of physical training and competition for MLB roster spots have increased.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/06/unionizing-minor-leagues-could-reshape-baseball/
For the Metropole:
“Butte may soon lose its Superfund status, depending on how cleanup goes following the EPA’s 2020 announcement and the circumstances which might de-list Butte as a Superfund. But the Berkeley Pit will still be there. Can the city again do what William Andrews Clark once did with Columbia Gardens: craft an emerald gem brilliant enough to live with the price of the Richest Hill on Earth? Time will tell if the scars of a costly mining past and a desire to replenish the natural environment can coexist in Butte.
https://themetropole.blog/2022/01/31/recreation-and-reclamation-of-the-richest-hill-on-earth/
Retweeted by the American Historical Association and Historical Research Associates:
On the 2021-2022 MLB Lockout:
This fractious relationship between players and management has reflected the larger state of worker-management relations in the United States. For example, players witnessed strikes by 3 million workers in the United States in 1970. Politics were similarly influential. These players had lived through the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Curt Flood had participated in NAACP events with Jackie Robinson. Roguish characters like Jim Bouton were outspoken in the 1960s and 1970s whether baseball liked it or not.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/14/baseballs-lockout-reflects-renewed-labor-might-united-states/
Still, some are closely monitoring Walsh’s moves as a sign of how he’ll respond to other labor disputes. “Whether it is just baseball players, or professional athletes more generally, these are the most notable people we talk about as union members,” said Gwendolyn Lockman, a University of Texas PhD. candidate in U.S. history who studies labor and leisure. “Those events do amplify one another.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/02/14/walsh-wants-his-turn-at-bat-00008514
Gwendolyn R. Lockman 