In honor of its first 100 years, the Department of Labor has compiled a list of
"books that shaped work in America." So if you're looking for reading material, you're going to be busy for a while. The books on the list date from 1758, with Benjamin Franklin's
Poor Richard Improved, to 2013, with Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers'
The Day the Crayons Quit and Sonia Sotomayor's
My Beloved World. They include novels, children's books, memoir, biography, academic studies, and more. Books everyone should read and books no one should (
Atlas Shrugged, to name one obvious example).
Through the books on the list, we can trace the rise of equality and freedom for different groups in American history: The Narrative of Frederick Douglass to Richard Wright's Native Son to Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique to Shirley Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed.
The initial list of books was offered by contributors like current and former labor secretaries Thomas Perez, Hilda Solis, Elaine Chao (not, as you might think, the source of the Ayn Rand suggestion, though she did suggest an Amity Shlaes book), and Robert Reich; as well as writers, the owners of a children's bookstore, and more; now, the Labor Department is asking for more suggestions. So get reading—or get suggesting.