Richard Greenwald, Ph.D. discusses unemployment on long island at forum
On December 5, 2012, Richard Greenwald, Ph.D., academic dean of the
School of Arts and Sciences and professor of history on the Brooklyn
Campus, participated in a panel discussion and screening of the HBO
documentary film Hard Times: Lost on Long Island, which addresses
the subject of unemployment and its far-lasting effects on a number of
Long Islanders, at the second annual Ruth S. Ammon School of Education
Frances Perkins Forum at Adelphi University.
As a panelist, Dr. Greenwald, an accomplished labor historian and editor of Labor Rising: The Past and Future of American Workers,
discussed the impact of the economic meltdown on Long Island.
Specifically, he elaborated on how Long Island has changed economically
over the past few decades, and the serious ramifications for the future
of not only the Island, but the regional economy as well.
“Long
Island is undergoing a significant change and process of adaptation,”
said Dr. Greenwald. “In the immediate postwar years, Long Island was
booming as suburbanization brought people, jobs and the American Dream
for many, though not all. Starting in the 1970s, and escalating since,
population and jobs have left the Island. The filmmakers of Hard Times
have done a great service in depicting the human impact of these
changes, and I was glad to have contributed to this worthy and important
discussion.”
Dr. Greenwald is an academic dean and professor of history and sociology at SJC. His most recent work, Labor Rising: The Past and Future of American Workers (co-edited with Daniel Katz), was recently released by The New Press.
Dr. Greenwald’s scholarly interests include political economy,
particularly the intersection of the workplace, business and American
politics. He is the author of The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York (2005), co-editor of Sweatshop USA: The American Sweatshop in Historical and Global Perspective (2003) and editor of Exploring America’s Past: Essays in Social and Cultural History (1996). The New Press is expected to publish his co-edited collection on the future of work in 2013.
