scholarly journals Ladies Aid as Labor History

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-347
Author(s):  
Stacy D. Fahrenthold
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Gendered Politics ◽  
American Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Education And Employment ◽  
Labor System ◽  
Arabic Speaking

Abstract In the Arabic-speaking mahjar (diaspora), the plight of the working poor was the focus of women’s philanthropy. Scholarship on welfare relief in the interwar Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian diaspora currently situates it within a gendered politics of benevolence. This article reconsiders that frame and argues for a class-centered reassessment of “ladies aid” politics exploring the intersections of women’s relief with proletarian mutual aid strategies. Founded in 1917, the Syrian Ladies Aid Society (SLAS) of Boston provided food, shelter, education, and employment to Syrian workers. SLAS volunteers understood their efforts as mitigating the precarities imposed on Syrian workers by the global capitalist labor system. Theirs was both a women’s organization and a proletarian movement led by Syrian women. Drawing from SLAS records and the Syrian American press, the article centers Syrian American women within processes of working-class formation and concludes that labor history of the interwar mahjar requires focus on spaces of social reproduction beyond the factory floor.

scholarly journals "COMPANY OF MUTUAL AID OF PRIVATE CUSTOMERS" OF GALICIA: ANALYSIS OF THE STATUTE AND ACTIVITY

2017 ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
Ihor Berest
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Present State ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Mutual Assistance ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Significance

On the basis of trade union periodicals, the principle of historicism, scientific and objective approach, the article analyzes and shows the statute and activities of the trade union of private servants of Eastern Galicia. The present state and development of the historiography of the problems, the history of the trade union movement was investigated, it was proved that the main event in the trade union movement of the middle of the ХІХ century became social processes in Eastern Galicia, which created a new working-class movement on the material and moral protection of workers. The study of this problem has an important scientific significance, since it enables to show the work of the first professional union of private employees, to analyze their program document and to show the evolution of trade union movement until the adoption of the Constitution of 1867. Among the works devoted to this topic, unfortunately, there are no monographs or scientific researches by Ukrainian scholars, therefore, in the article we rely on the study of Polish scholars: Bali Stanislav, Kishchinsky Lucian, and trade union periodicals, where there is an attempt to present the history of trade union movement in a new course of events. Thus, we can conclude that the Society for the Mutual Assistance of Private Servants was formed, the founding of which was sought or projected by employees from 1846. And, despite for political blockages, or attacks by employers and many other reasons, the suspension of the creation of a basic document, however, achieved the goal of 1867 - the Society began its activities.

Red History, Blue Mood: Labor History and Solidarity in an Age of Fragmentation

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Jefferson Cowie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
Class Community

Beginning with labor historians’ efforts to create a synthesis of the field in the 1980s, this essay explores the problem of working-class political fragmentation and the intellectual problems that posed for the generation of “new” labor historians. Looking to culture, class, community, and control as their themes, historians overlooked deeper problems in American class formation as well as the monumental complexity of discussing the history of class in the United States.

Ethnic activities and leisure cultures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Bueltmann ◽  
Donald M. MacRaild
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
History Of

Charity and mutual aid—hierarchical and reciprocal types of ethnic associationalism—divided the St George’s societies from the Sons of St George and the Sons of England. However, such divisions did not create intra-ethnic hostility between them. Regardless of this significant turn in the history of English ethnic associational culture in North America, all associations were united in their patriotism to England, which remained a constant. And despite their different social composition and emphases, the elite and middle-class St George’s societies still shared a number of characteristics with the more working-class organisations focused on providing collective self-help. Chapter 4 traces the inner workings and activities of the different organisations to explore these commonalities both in terms of their structures and membership, but also with respect to the events and socio-cultural pursuits they promoted. St George’s Days, dinners, dances, lectures, day trips and sports, were all used to emphasize shared identity in the new communities. Moreover, the somewhat chauvinistic deployment of Anglo-Saxon rhetoric and of pugnacious, loud expressions of loyalty to the monarchy were critical for all of these English groups, united them behind common principles. Such shared values were customarily expressed at dinners and parades, but also at more specific events organized for coronations and jubilees. War also played a significant role, heightening the sense of loyalty to the crown and shared roots—even in the republican United States. Indeed wars afforded an opportunity for the English in North America to send funds home to aid widows and orphans, with large sums generated. Each of these aspects is explored here.

THE LABOR OF SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: HOUSEHOLD WORK AND GENDERED POWER IN THE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM, 1870–1930

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudi Batzell
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
List Type ◽  
State University ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
History Of

•Susan Porter Benson, Household Accounts: Working-Class Family Economies in the Interwar United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007).•Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).•Elaine Lewinnek, The Working Man's Reward: Chicago's Early Suburbs and the Roots of American Sprawl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 2014).•Katherine Leonard Turner, How the Other Half Ate: A History of Working-Class Meals at the Turn of the Century, California Studies in Food and Culture 48 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).•Karol K. Weaver, Medical Caregiving and Identity in Pennsylvania's Anthracite Region, 1880–2000 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011).•Wendy A. Woloson, In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

scholarly journals “Mind Forg’d Manacles” and Recent Pathways to “New” Labor Histories

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan D. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Negative Evaluation ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Survey Article ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Unfree Labor ◽  
Global Study ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
History Of

AbstractSince the 1990s, labor history has been presented as “in crisis”. This negative evaluation is an overstatement. It has nevertheless prodded historians, often productively, to rethink the basic orientations of working-class history. This survey article explores three recent pathways to a “new” labor history: the turn to transnational and global study; the “new” history of capitalism; and the study of slavery as unfree labor. These new approaches to labor history highlight an old dilemma: how the structured determinations of laboring life are balanced alongside dimensions of human agency in understanding the complex experience of the working-class past. It is argued that we need to consider both structureandagency in the researching and writing of labor history. If an older “new” labor history accented agency, new pathways to labor history too often seem constrained by “mind forg’d manacles” that limit understandings of workers’ past lives by emphasizing structure and determination.

The Development of Labor History in UK Museums and the People's History Museum

2009 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-35
Author(s):  
Chris Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Common People ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Textile Conservation ◽  
Academic Labor ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
History Of

Labor history in UK museums is constantly in a state of change. A hundred-year-old tradition of displaying and interpreting the history of the common people has seen a shift from the folk life museum to a much more all-encompassing model. The academic trend for and acceptance of working-class history began this process, and museums followed, albeit at a much slower pace. Young curators actively involved in the History Workshop, Oral History, and Women's History movements brought their new philosophies into the museum sphere. This internally driven change in museums has been matched with demand for change from above. Museums have been given a central role in the current Labour government's wide-ranging strategies to promote an understanding of diversity, citizenship, cultural identity, and lifelong learning as part of a broader social inclusion policy. The zenith of this plan would be a museum devoted to British national history, though whether this will take place is yet to be seen. The transformation of the People's History Museum makes an interesting case study. The museum, originally an institution on the fringes of academic labor history and actively outside the museum community, is now at the forefront of labor history display, interpretation, textile conservation, and working-class historical research.

Labor History and Public History: Introduction

2009 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Miller Klubock ◽  
Paulo Fontes
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Labor History ◽  
New Left ◽  
The United States ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
History Of ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Labor history and public history have had a long relationship in the United States, as James Green argues in Taking History to Heart, dating back to Progressive-era historians like Mary Ritter and Charles A. Beard. Labor historians like Phillip Foner, who identified with the “Old Left,” made labor history public history through ties to labor organizations and the Communist Party. Then, during the 1960s, historians identified with the “New Left” and inspired by E.P. Thompson, worked to extend social history and working-class history “from the bottom up” beyond the confines of the academy, even as they shifted their focus from the institutional histories of unions and political parties, to make the history of “ordinary people” and “everyday life” public history. The organization of history workshops and the proliferation of oral history projects reflect the ways in which historians of the working class made their practices public history in new ways during the 1960s and 1970s while expanding the sphere of both “the public” and “labor” to include histories of women, gender and patriarchy, and ethnic and racial minorities.

scholarly journals The “Rank and File” and the Social History of the Working Class

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Cronin
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social History ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Explanation ◽  
Interpretive Frameworks

Labor history continues to progress. It continues, too, to transform itself from a field staffed by enthusiasts and partisans into a discipline peopled with scholars sympathetic to their subject but also highly conscious of the methods, theories and interpretive frameworks within which they work. The last few years in particular have witnessed a considerable intensification of scholarly controversy within labor history and a growing sophistication of debate. To some extent the discussion parallels the ongoing conversation among social historians about the boundaries of social history, the power of primarily social explanation and the role of language, culture and politics in social history. Unfortunately, however, the stepping up of debate in labor history coincides with a dip – temporary, one hopes, but perhaps more long-term – in the fortunes of labor movements themselves. This conjuncture seems to have produced a sense of pessimism and malaise as the sentimental accompaniment to many of the debates within labor history.

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