"We seek to inform as well as to celebrate. The best posters about American workers and the jobs at which they labor make up a visually fascinating body of work that rewards our attention. The posters were produced with a dual purpose: to entertain and to inform. They were also vehicles for working people to present themselves visually, which is rarely as straightforward as it might seem because the labor force itself is not monolithic. Nor are the posters about just paid or wage labor. They repeatedly demonstrate that labor issues include both the workplace and the outside community and often portray families and neighbors, not just fellow workers."―from Agitate! Educate! Organize!
In Agitate! Educate! Organize!, Lincoln Cushing and Timothy W. Drescher share their vast knowledge about the rich graphic tradition of labor posters. Lavish full-color reproductions of more than 250 of the best posters that have emerged from the American labor movement ensure that readers will want to return again and again to this visually fascinating treasury of little-known images from the American past. Some of the posters were issued by government programs and campaigns; some were devised by unions as recruiting tools or strike announcements; others were generated by grassroots organizations focused on a particular issue or group of workers―all reveal much about the diverse experiences of working people in the United States.
American labor posters are widely scattered, difficult to locate, and rarely archived. Cushing and Drescher examined several thousand such images in the course their research, guaranteeing a truly representative selection. The presentation of the posters is thematic, with a brief history of activist graphic media followed by chapters on Dignity and Exploitation; Health and Safety; Women; Race and Civil Rights; War, Peace and Internationalism; Solidarity and Organizing; Strikes and Boycotts; Democracy, Voting, and Patriotism; History, Heroes, and Martyrs; and Culture. Along with the stunning color images, the text contributes to a much deeper understanding of the politics, history, artistry, and impact of this genre of activist art and the importance of the labor movement in the transformation of American society over the course of the twentieth century.
For more information about this book, visit www.docspopuli.org/ArtWorks.html.

Agitate! Educate! Organize!: American Labor Posters

Arts & Photography

Cushing, Lincoln

Drescher, Timothy W.

History & Criticism

ILR PRESS

The poster was the popular art form in Cuba following the Cuban Revolution, when the government sponsored some 10,000 public posters on a fascinating range of cultural, social, and political themes. Revoluci n!, produced with unprecedented access to Cuban national archives, assembles nearly 150 of these powerful but little—seen works of popular art. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the posters rallied the Cuban people to the huge task of building a new society, promoting massive sugar harvests and national literacy campaigns; opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam; celebrating films, music, dance, and baseball with a unique graphic wit and exuberant colorful style. With an introduction illuminating the rich social and artistic history of the posters, and rare biographical information on the artists themselves, this striking volume offers a window into the story of Cuba—and a truly revolutionary chapter in graphic design.

Revolucion!: Cuban Poster Art

Graphic Design

Chronicle Books+

The Cultural Revolution in China produced thousands of powerful social and political posters exhorting the Chinese people in a sweeping transformation of Chinese society. These brilliantly colorful images of cultural celebration, industrial development, agricultural production, and revolutionary heroes were displayed in homes and public spaces across the country. Chinese Posters collects more than 150 of the most striking of these posters and offers background on their social and political context and production. An essay by Ann Tompkins provides a personal account of living in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Tompkins, Ann

This long-awaited catalog of political posters pays homage to an influential and populist art movement that has created some of the most enduring imagery of our time. In All of Us or None, author Lincoln Cushing examines key selections from a remarkable archive of over 24,000 posters amassed by free speech movement activist, author, and educator Michael Rossman over the course of thirty years. This inspiring collection of Bay Area posters illuminates the history of this ad-hoc and ephemeral art form, celebrating its unique capacity to infuse contemporary issues with the urgency and energy of the eternal fight for justice. 
 Featuring posters on topics as diverse as civil rights, war, poverty, the environment, music, women's liberation, fine art, and gentrification, All of Us or None shows us why the Bay Area was such fertile breeding ground for the genre and why it arguably produced more independent political posters than anywhere else on earth. Here is an exhilarating history of artists, studios, printshops, distributors, activists, icons, and changemakers-- among them R. Crumb, Stanley Mouse, Cesar Chavez, Max Scherr, Emory Douglas, Angela Davis, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Bill Graham, and Pete Seeger--together raising their voices in opposition to the status quo. 
 In spring of 2012, the Oakland Museum of California will present its first comprehensive exhibition of this recently acquired treasure; the show, along with this book, presents an unbroken narrative of passionate social justice printmaking from the mid-1960s to the present.

All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area

Heyday Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cushing, Lincoln. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cushing, Lincoln

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cushing, Lincoln. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Agitate! Educate! Organize!: American Labor Posters

Revolucion!: Cuban Poster Art

Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area