Faculty and Staff

James R. Barrrett

Department of History
309 Gregory Hall
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
810 S. Wright Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801
(217) 333-4193

722 S. Lynn Street
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Email: jrbarret@uiuc.edu

Born in Chicago, Illinois, June 14, 1950.  Married; one child.

Education:

A.B., Honors, History, 1972, University of Illinois at Chicago.
M.A., Comparative Labor History, 1974, Center for the Study of Social History, University of Warwick (Coventry, England).
Ph.D., History, 1981, University of Pittsburgh.

Related Academic Experience:

Assistant Professor to Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1984-Present; Chair, 1997-2000; Assoc. Chair, 1987-1989; Assoc. Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, 1991-1993; Faculty Affiliate, African-American Studies and Research Program, 1986-Present.
Consulting/Interviewing/Teaching:  NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 1976; Pennsylvania Ethnic Heritage Study Center, 1976; "The Killing Floor" a National Public Television play based on race relations in the Chicago stockyards and the 1919 race riot, 1977-78; United Mine Workers of America, District 5, Spring 1979; "Democracy at Work," labor history video for middle school children in Illinois public schools, 1993; Associate Director, Faculty,  Secondary School Teachers Summer Institutes in Social and African-American History, 1987, 1992, 1994; Computer-based learning module on Chicago History for Chicago Public High School Students, 1994-95; video for organizing home health care workers, Service Employees International Union, Chicago, 1997; “Great Books – The Jungle,” Discovery Channel, two interviews, narrative, consulting, 2000; Labor History in the Schools, Champaign County AFL-CIO, 2000-Present.

Awards and Publications:

Fellow, Center for the Study of Democracy in Multiracial Society, Spring 2005.
Graduate College Mentoring Award, University of Illinois, 2000
Award of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching, 1990.
Richard G. and Carole J. Cline University Scholar (“for outstanding achievements in research and teaching in the Humanities”), 1990-93.
Lloyd Lewis/NEH Senior Fellowship in American History, The Newberry Library, 1990-91.

Direction of Research

Ten completed PhDs; seventeen current doctoral students.

Publications

James R. Barrett, William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism, University of Illinois Press, 2000; paper, 2001.
James R. Barrett, Work and Community in 'The Jungle': Chicago's Packing House Workers, 1894-1922, University of Illinois Press, 1987; paper, 1990. 
Steve Nelson, James R. Barrett and Rob Ruck Steve Nelson, American Radical, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981; Paper, 1992.
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, edited with an introduction and notes by James R. Barrett, 1906; new edition, University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of Labor, edited with an introduction and notes by James R. Barrett, 1907; new edition, University of Illinois Press, 2004.
“The Blessed Virgin Made Me a Socialist Historian: An Experiment in Autobiography and the Historiography of Race and Class,” in Faith in History, Nick Salvatore, Ed. forthcoming, University of Illinois Press, 2006. (A revised version of “Vatican Two Comes to the West Side:  An Experiment in Catholic Autobiography and Social History,” forthcoming, winter 2006 in US Catholic Historian.
(with David R. Roediger) “The Irish and the ‘Americanization’ of the ‘New Immigrants’ in the Streets and in the Churches of the Urban United States, 1900-1930,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 24: 3 (Summer 2005), 3-33.
“Class Act: An Interview with David Montgomery,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, 1 (Spring 2004):  25-56.
(with David R. Roediger) “Making New Immigrants Inbetween:  Irish Hosts and White Pan-ethnicity, 1890-1930,” in Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States, Nancy Foner and George Fredrickson, Eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), 167-196.
“Ethnic and Racial Fragmentation: Toward an Interpretation of a Local Labor Movement” in Joe Trotter, Earl Lewis, Tera Hunter, Eds. African American Urban Studies: Historical, Contemporary and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Publishing Co., 2004), 287-309.
“The History of American Communism and Our Understanding of Stalinism,” American Communist History 2 (Winter 2003):  175-182.
“Revolution and Personal Crisis: William Z. Foster and the American Communist Personal Narrative,” in press Labor History, 43:4 (Fall 2002):  465-482.
“Whiteness Studies: Anything Here for Working Class Historians?” International Labor and Working Class History, 60 (Fall 2001): 33-42.
"Americanization from The Bottom Up:  Immigration and the Remaking of the American Working Class, 1880-1930", Journal of American History, 79 December 1992:  996-1020.
(with David Roediger), “In Between Peoples:  Race, Nationality and the ‘New Immigrant’ Working Class,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 16 (1997): 3-33.