#  HISTSCI 1957: Gig Economies: Past, Present, Future 

 





 Semester:   Spring 

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 Year offered:  2027 

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 Link: [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/181076) 

 

 

 

Wednesday - 3:00-5:45 PM with Madeleine Baker, College Fellow

This course explores how and why “gig work” — featuring flexible, short-term agreements and few of the benefits or protections associated with formal employment — has become so pervasive, with harmful consequences for workers and societies alike. We will examine how unions and federal labor law sought to redress precarity in the early twentieth century; the emergence of early gig-like arrangements like direct selling, multi-level marketing, and franchising; the role of digital technologies in both expanding access to gig work and surveilling gig workers; the possible effects of the AI boom on the gig economy; and labor organizing by gig workers today.



 

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  [### Madeleine Baker

 ](/people/madeleine-baker) [m\_baker@g.harvard.edu](mailto:m_baker@g.harvard.edu)College Fellow

 

 

 Research Interests: 20th century US history; history of the social sciences; history of labor and management Madeleine Baker is College Fellow in the History of Science Department and the director of the senior thesis program for the History & Science... 

 

 

      ![M Baker photo](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-06/MBaker.jpg?itok=Sz--iWpj)