Browse Items (56 total)
- Collection: Beehive Archive - Utah Work Stories
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A Voice for Working Women
The Woman’s Exponent magazine served an unusual role in advocating for Utah’s working women during the late nineteenth century. One of the greatest advocates for Utah’s working women was the Woman’s Exponent magazine, started in Salt Lake…
AnnaBelle Weakley: Businesswoman & Community Builder
Meet AnnaBelle Weakley – known as the “Queen of 25th Street” – and learn how her entrepreneurial instinct and civic spirit transformed her Ogden community.During the mid-twentieth century, there was no railroad hub in Utah busier than Ogden,…
Anti-Apartheid Activists Force Divestment at the University of Utah
In the mid-nineteen eighties, global pressure was mounting against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Learn how persistent student activists at the University of Utah forced their campus to confront its connections to an oppressive regime half a…
Brewing Liquid Bread
Did you know that before Prohibition, Utah was home to fifteen breweries? Some were among the biggest and best in the West. Learn about Utah’s early beer brewers and their specialized craft.Ask any beer brewer – or any beer connoisseur – and…
Butch Cassidy: Outlaw for the People?
As Americans, we extol the value of an “honest living,” but what about work that is less than honest? Butch Cassidy was a Utah boy with a penchant for wild living who paid his way using any means necessary.While considered unsavory, many…
Convict Labor: Road-Building Backbone for Utah
Learn about Utah’s convict labor system and how prisoners actually formed the backbone of some of our early public works projects – especially road construction.The term "convict labor" usually conjures up images of men wearing black and white…
E.A. Miller & Sons: Big Company in a Small Town
Learn about E.A. Miller & Sons, a small family business started during the Great Depression, and how it grew to be part of the world’s largest beef producer.In 1935, in the small town of Hyrum, in Utah’s rural Cache Valley, Ernest and…
Eight-Hour Workday
The reality of an eight-hour workday remains elusive for many Utah workers, but it is still considered the national standard, and one we take for granted. Learn how Utah became the first state to adopt the eight-hour workday.During the late…
Emergency Responders: Ute Indian Firefighters
Have you ever seen a wildfire exploding up a mountain or heard one roaring through a forest? For Northern Ute Indian Firefighters, that was just another day at work.As a kid, Gina Sixkiller remembered her father smelling like fire. "I used to think…
Employee Codes of Conduct
Long work hours and blurry lines between personal and professional lives is hardly a modern dilemma. But imagine if your employer controlled not just your hours and your paycheck, but where you spent your off hours and how you spent your money.…
Erased History: Chinese Workers in Park City
Barred from lucrative work and hounded by local residents, it took years of discrimination against Chinese workers to erase their contributions to Park City.All that remains of Park City’s once-thriving Chinatown is a name on a parking garage:…
Flying Monkeys and Fighter Pilots
Imagine you are a fighter pilot needing to escape your plane when something goes wrong. Your life depends on the work of scientists who – more than sixty years ago – filled the Utah desert air with sonic booms and flying monkeys.Being a fighter…
Folk Artists Work to Preserve Cultural Traditions
It might be easy to think that the production of folk art isn’t really “work.” But whether or not folk artists make a living through their creativity, their labors require hard-earned mastery of skills. Learn about two Utah women whose art was…
Frank Chester Robertson: Dreamweaver
Meet Frank Chester Robertson, the famous Utah author who made his living writing popular Westerns that belied his own life of desperation on the Mormon frontier.Frank Robertson wasn’t exactly the kind of writer groomed in literary circles. Born…
From the Earth into Bellies: Timpanogos Utes
We no longer work as close to the land as Utah’s indigenous people once did. But that doesn’t mean we don’t work for the same reasons. Learn how Timpanogos Utes made a living and how we might relate.We sometimes forget how much work was – and…
Gus Faust - American Doughboy
Utah sent thousands of infantrymen into World War I where they faced unimaginable conditions on the battlefield. But when the war ended, the battle continued at home, where returning soldiers faced a changing economy, uncertain job prospects, and a…
Hollywood Puts Utah to Work
Utah’s romance with the movie industry began in the 1920s silent film era and hasn’t diminished since. Nearly a thousand motion pictures and television series have filmed in Utah, bringing millions each year to the state. Learn how Hollywood…
Howard Coleman: Stepping Stones to a Better Life
Meet Howard Coleman, who came West with the railroad and built a better life – one job at a time.Like many of us, Howard Coleman used his work as a stepping stone to a better life. As a black man and the son of a Kentucky share-cropper, his…
In Praise of Leisure
Tourists and Utahns alike enjoy the Beehive State for its many opportunities for outdoor recreation. Learn how much of that recreation originated in the way people worked.The state of Utah is widely known for its outdoor recreation. Skiers…
Industrialism Drives Utah Women to the Workplace
American industrialism at the turn of the 20th century brought Utah women out of their homes and into the workplace. There they faced inequality and wage disparity.The turn of the twentieth century saw dramatic changes that created new opportunities…