The Great Labor Arts Exchange is an annual

arts festival An arts festival is a festival that can encompass a wide range of art forms including music, dance, film, fine art, literature, poetry and is not solely focused on visual arts. Arts festivals may feature a mixed program that include music, lit ...

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

, which celebrates the

labor history of the United States The nature and power of organized labor in the United States is the outcome of historical tensions among counter-acting forces involving workplace rights, wages, working hours, political expression, US labor law, labor laws, and other working co ...

as well as preserves, advances and promotes the culture of the American labor movement. In June 1979, Joe Glazer, a composer, musician and educator active in the American labor movement, invited 14 other labor musicians to the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring to share labor-related musical and written compositions, and to discuss the effective use of music, song, poetry and chants in labor activism. The three-day event became an annual one, becoming known as the Great Labor Arts Exchange (GLAE). Over the next five years, the concept of "labor culture" and how the labor movement and the arts interacted which Glazer and others held expanded. In 1984, Glazer incorporated the Labor Heritage Foundation as a parent body for GLAE as well as to curate and promote the culture of the American labor movement. GLAE remains the largest and most prominent program of the Labor Heritage Foundation. The festival now includes a variety of artistic and cultural endeavors, such as cartooning, painting, film, puppetry, street theater, and photography. GLAE participants have included singer

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

, artist Ralph Fasanella, photographer Earl Dotter and poet Chris Llewellyn. The Labor Heritage Foundation began presenting the

Joe Hill Award The Joe Hill Award is awarded annually at the Great Labor Arts Exchange by The Labor Heritage Foundation. The award is named for Joe Hill (activist), Joe Hill, a radical songwriter, labor union, labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers ...

in 1989. The award, given during GLAE, honors individuals for a body of work in the field of labor culture.

References

*"Creative Workers Can Spark Organizing Drives." ''UAW Solidarity.'' May 2000. *Dunaway, David King. ''How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger.'' New York City: McGraw-Hill Cos., 1981. *Foner, Philip S. and Schulz, Reinhard. ''The Other America: Art and the Labour Movement in the United States.'' London, England: Pluto Press, 1985.
"Labor's Troubadour: Joe Glazer and Collector Records." Smithsonian Global Sound.
Smithsonian Institution. Accessed Jan. 25, 2007. *Martin, Douglas. "Joe Glazer, 88, a Singer and Songwriter for Labor." ''New York Times.'' September 21, 2006.

External links

Labor Heritage Foundation
History of labor relations in the United States Labor studies organizations based in the United States Arts organizations based in Maryland National Labor College Festivals in Maryland Working-class culture in Maryland Silver Spring, Maryland (CDP) {{US-arts-org-stub