History Is Not Boring: Using Social Media to Bring Labor History Alive

Abstract

This article features an innovative and engaging assignment to help students learn about labor history events. Labor history is more than just a collection of dates, facts, and figures. Rather, it is the study of the men, women, and children who fought for a workplace that many of today’s employees take for granted: paid leave, a 5-day workweek, potential legal representation of a union, and pensions. By imagining the key stakeholders with access to social media during the time of their chosen historical event, students develop a deeper understanding of the event’s impact and relationship to current practices. Educators seeking an alternate way of tasking students to examine stakeholder theory may also find this assignment useful. We leverage social media to counter the perception among some management students that history is boring with little to no connection to their lives.

Keywords

labor history management history social media teaching innovation ethics stakeholder theory

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