Co-sponsored by Center for European Studies, Middle East Studies Program, Elections Resource Center, Institute for Regional and International Studies National Resource Center, and Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program
Free and open to the public
Professor Stacy D. Fahrenthold will present her talk on Mahjari capitalism and its archival afterlives at the annual Middle East Program conference. Be sure to register for this exciting event! The day promises rich discussions on political and cultural topics, along with valuable networking opportunities. Don’t miss the chance to connect with experts, enthusiasts, and like-minded individuals who share Professor Fahrenthold’s passion for these important subjects.
For more information about the event, please visit the Middle East Studies Program website here.
Between 1913 and 1934, New York City’s garment industry saw a wave of strikes led by women and girls previously deemed unorganizable. These strikes, often involving thousands, forced employers to close shops and secure better wages, contracts, and conditions. While much has been written about the garment industry’s role in the women’s labor movement, the “Syrian shops” where 3,500 to 6,000 Arab American women worked are often overlooked. Initially considered “unreachable” due to ethnic ties, these women surprised labor activists by joining strikes and securing concessions from their employers. This talk examines the role of Syrian women in these labor actions and their interactions with unions.
Stacy D. Fahrenthold (Associate Professor at University of California Davis) is a historian of the modern Middle East specializing in labor migration; displacement/refugees; border studies; and diasporas within and from the region.
Her first book, Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, received the Arab American National Museum’s 2020 Evelyn Shakir Award, the 2019 Khayrallah Prize in Migration Studies, the 2019 Syrian Studies Association’s Book Award, and received Honorable Mention by the Lebanese Studies Association in 2020. 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.
