 The WCSA grew out of biennial conferences organized by the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University starting in 1995 and, beginning in 2002, How Class Works, a biennial conference sponsored by The Center for Study of Working-Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.Since its inception in 2004 the WCSA has sponsored and co-sponsored conferences biennially, and starting in 2018, annually.From 2006-2016 the association met biennially at How Class Works conferences in even numbered years.