Stacy Fahrenthold, a professor of history, has been awarded the 2026 David Montgomery Award for her book Unmentionables: Textiles, Garment Work, and the Syrian American Working Class.
The prize is awarded to the best book on a topic in American labor history and given jointly by the Organization of American Historians, or OAH, and the Labor and Working-Class History Association. Unmentionables also received the Middle East Studies Association's 2025 Nikkie Keddie Award for exceptional scholarship in religion, revolution and/or society.
“Our faculty in history write vital stories about our past, and it’s always exciting to see their work recognized,” said Gregory Downs, professor and chair of the Department of History in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.
In Unmentionables, Fahrenthold unravels the history of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants’ activism in the global textile industry and labor strikes. Her book reveals how women garment workers, child laborers and union activists struggled against white and even Arab American bosses, as well as why their impact has gone ignored.
“Arab American activists played a significant role, but they hadn’t been acknowledged by history because they had to evade the limelight,” said Fahrenthold. “This book was animated by a desire to capture the histories of workers and people who organized as part of the labor movement.”
The David Montgomery Award is named for Yale historian David Montgomery, a former union organizer and major figure in working class history and labor studies. The formal prize ceremony will be held in April at the OAH annual meeting in Philadelphia.
Unmentionables is the first book to win prizes from both the Middle East Studies Association and the Organization of American Historians.
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