Personal Statement:
Branden Adams grew up in Pineville, West Virginia. He writes about environmental, labor, and business history in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. His current book project examines the attempts by the United Mine Workers to take over the late nineteenth-century coal market by setting prices and wages. He is interested broadly in social history–especially the history of working people–in the United States and their engagement with and subjection to political economy. His research has been supported by the Economic Security Project.
Current Projects:
Miners and Antimonopoly in the United States Coal Industry, 1865-1910 (book)
“Cartels, Railroads, and Labor Unions in the era of the Commodity Clause” (article)
“John Brown and the Wool Market: Commerce and Antislavery in the 1840s” (article)
Selected Publications:
“Coalminers and Coordination Rights,” LPEblog, July 19, 2021
“What Tripped Up the Nineteenth-Century Version of Andrew Yang,” Washington Post, June 22, 2021
“Cap and Trade,” interview with Anna Tsing, The New Inquiry, August 31, 2015
Courses Taught:
History 17A – The American People
History 166R – 20th century U. S. History Research Seminar
History 167CA – History of the American Working Class, 1800-1900
History 167CB – Capital and Class in 20th-Century America
History 173 – California History
History 173T – American Environmental History
History 178A – American Urban History