‘A Strong International Spirit’: The Influence of Internationalism on the Women’s Co-operative Guild

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hellawell
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Local Branch ◽  
Complementary Role ◽  
Working Class Women

Abstract This article explores the internationalism of the Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG) during the interwar years. Drawing on the records of the national and international Guild, alongside the minute books of a local branch based in Darlington, County Durham, it positions the WCG in the vibrant political culture in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Building on recent literature that has sought to examine the phenomenon of interwar internationalism, this article sheds light on an organization that represented the interests of working-class women. Internationalist in outlook, the association demonstrates how internationalist ideals played out on a day-to-day basis. The article demonstrates that the WCG played a unique and complementary role within both the British and international women’s movements.

Working-Class Women, Gender, and Union Politics in Turkey, 1965–1980

2021 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Büşra Satı
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Textile Workers ◽  
Labor Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
The One

AbstractThis paper focuses on the ideology and discourses of Tekstil İṣçileri Sendikası (the Textile Workers’ Union, Tekstil) in Turkey to highlight some of the specific visions of the organized labor for an emancipatory gender politics during the 1970s. This history of intersection between gender and working-class organizing has been overlooked by the Left scholarship on the one hand and liberal feminist scholarship on the other. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by highlighting gender and class concurrently throughout the history of the transformation of gender politics in labor organizations. The history of the simultaneous development of gender-related policies in Tekstil/DİSK and TEKSİF/Türk-İṣ reveals an unexplored aspect of the contentious dynamic between rival labor organizations. Between 1975–1980, the politics of gender became another pillar in trade union competition. Following the transnational influences in this transformation, this paper highlights a forgotten period of labor organizing and locates it within the history of labor and women's movements at the national and global scale.

White Working-Class Women and the Race Question

1998 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 80-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Frank
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
White Men ◽  
The Other ◽  
White Trash ◽  
White Writers ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women

In Towards the Abolition of Whiteness David Roediger tells the story of Covington Hall, the editor of a newsletter published by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers in Louisiana in 1913 and 1914. Roediger deftly analyzes efforts by Hall and other white writers in the brotherhood to construct cross-racial unity within an otherwise racially torn working class. He shows how Hall redrew the lines of solidarity: On one side were the degraded, of any race.On the other were enlightened workers who eschewed racial divisions, racist language, and stereotypes. “There are white men, Negro men, and Mexican men in this union, but no niggers, greasers or white trash,” proclaimed Ed Lehman, a soapbox speaker for the Brotherhood. A headline in the newsletter similarly asked readers to choose, “SLAVES OR MEN, WHICH?” Still more graphically, a cartoon commanded, “Let all white MEN and Negro MEN get on the same side of this rotten log.”

Takin' Care of Business

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Case
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Juvenile Delinquents ◽  
The World ◽  
Rock N Roll

We usually associate the sounds of classic rock ‘n’ roll with youthful rebellion, by juvenile delinquents, student demonstrators, idealistic hippies, or irreverent punks. But an important strain of rock from the late 1960s onward spoke to and for a very different audience: the regular working-class fans who didn’t want to change the world as much as they wanted to protect their place in it. From Creedence Clearwater Revival to Bruce Springsteen, from Lynyrd Skynyrd to AC/DC, and from Judas Priest to Ted Nugent, the music provided the anthems of an increasingly distinct—and increasingly vulnerable—demographic, which has since become a key influence on political culture around the world.

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