Leon Fink, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A specialist in American labor, immigration history, and the Gilded Age/Progressive Era, he directs the Ph.D. concentration in the History of Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World (WRGUW) and edits the journal Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas. Professor Fink is the author or editor of eight books, most recently SWEATSHOPS AT SEA: MERCHANT SEAMEN IN THE WORLD'S FIRST GLOBALIZED INDUSTRY, FROM 1812 TO 2000 (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), which seeks out the roots of today's "globalized" economic order. A Fulbright Senior Scholar and past NEH Fellow, Professor Fink has also taken a leading role in national history education circles, where he has stressed the necessary collaboration between the university and the public schools.