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Signs of Crisis, Fin-de-Siècle Doldrums, of Middle Age?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Geoffrey Field
Geoffrey Field
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Purchase
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Extract

The New Labor History has, unexpectedly but inevitably, become middleaged. The mirror shows the same basic form, though more capacious and less taut than before. But the energy level is definitely lower; some of the enthusiasm is gone; newer, younger groups on the street have more “élan and purpose,” and are more fired up and politically engaged. There's pride in past achievements, of course, and plenty of consolation that the stuff now being turned out is better than ever.But the air contains a whiff of panic, an infectious sense that the best days are gone. Even the “oldfashioned” history, once so disdained, now seems to have redeeming points. Like Lord Melbourne in his dotage, labor historians wish they could be as sure of anything as they once were of everything. Marxism down the tubes, class stripped of its explanatory force, Lefebvre's French Revolution gathering dust, E. P. Thompson under attack. Where will it all end? Some blame an excess of theory for making the mind spin and the stomach queasy; they prescribe a strong dose of exercise in the archives. Others have begun to pin their hopes on the state or counsel premature retreat into institutions.

Type
ILWCH Roundtable: What Next for Labor and Working-Class History?
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 46 , Fall 1994 , pp. 37 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1994

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References

NOTES

1. For a recent helpful collection of essays, see Berlanstein, Lenard R., Rethinking Labor History (Urbana, 1993).Google Scholar

2. Katznelson, Ira, “The State to the Rescue? Political Science and History Reconnect,” Social Research 59 (Winter 1992): 719–37.Google Scholar

3. Cronin, James E., The Politics of State Expansion. War, State, and Society in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1991).Google Scholar Also see Vincent, D., Poor Citizens. The State and the Poor in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1991).Google Scholar

4. See, for example, Baldwin, Peter, The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875–1975 (Cambridge, 1990);CrossRefGoogle ScholarKoven, Seth and Mitchell, Sonya, eds., Mothers of a New World. Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (London, 1993);Google Scholar and Pedersen, Susan, Family Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914–45 (Cambridge, 1993).Google Scholar

5. Cronin, Politics of State Expansion.

6. See, for example, the debate between Mayfield, D and Thorne, S. and Lawrence, J. and Taylor, M. in Social History 17 (05 1992); 165–88; 18 (01 1993); 1–15; 18(05 1993);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Patrich Joyce, ibid. 18 (January 1993): 81–85.

7. Examples of recent studies are Savage, Michael, The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics. The Labour Movement in Preston (Cambridge, 1987);Google ScholarMarriott, John, The Culture of Labourism. The East End between the Wars (Edinburgh, 1991);Google ScholarTanner, Duncan, Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge, 1990);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGoss, S., Local Labour and Local Government (Edinburgh, 1988);Google ScholarFielding, S., Class and Ethnicity, Irish Catholics in England 1880–1939 (Buckingham, 1993)Google Scholar, and Davies, A. and Fielding, S., eds. Workers' Worlds: Culture and Communities in Manchester and Salford, 1880–1839 (Manchester, 1992).Google ScholarThane, Pat has written several fine essays on Labour women, including “Women in the British Labour Party and the Construction of the Welfare State, 1906–1939”, in Koven, and Michell, , eds., Mothers of a New World.Google Scholar See also, Graves, Pamela, Labour Women. Women in British Working-Class Politics, 1918–39 (Cambridge, 1994).Google Scholar

8. Zeitlin, Jonathan, “From Labour History to the History of Industrial Relations,” Economic History Review 40 (1987): 159–84;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “Rank and Filism in British Labour History: A Critique,” and the answers by Price and Cronin, International Review of Social History 34 (1989): 42–102.

9. Focusing too often on “embourgeoisement,” “labourism,” “the forward march,” and “consensus,” Contrast the conceptual boldness of Perkin, H., The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (London, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Recent overviews include Hopkins, E., The Rise and Decline of the English Working Classes (London, 1991);Google Scholar and Bourke's, Joanna interesting discussion of working-class identities, Working-Class Cultures in Britain, 1890–1960. Gender, Class, and Ethnicity (London, 1994).Google Scholar

10. Rose, Sonya, “Gender and Labor History,” International Review of Social History 38 (1993): supplement, 145–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Glucksmann, Miriam, Women Assemble: Women Workers and the New Industries in Inter-war Britain (London, 1990).Google Scholar

12. Tabili, Laura, “The Construction of Racial Difference in Twentieth Century Britain: The Special Restriction (Colored Alien Seamen) Order, 1925”, Journal of British Studies 33 (01 1994); 54–98;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “‘Keeping the Natives Under Control’: Race Segregation and the Domestic Dimensions of Empire, 1920–1939”, International Labor and Working-Class History 44 (1993): 64–78.

13. For the United States, see Elder, Glen, Children of the Great Depression: Social Change in Life Experience (Chicago, 1974);Google ScholarTuttle, W.M., “Daddy's Gone to War”:The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children (New York, 1993).Google Scholar

14. Korff, Gottfried, “From Brotherly Handshake to Militant Clenched Fist: On Political Metaphors for the Worker's Hand”, International Labor and Working-Class History 42 (1992): 70–81;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “History of Symbols as Social History”, International Review of Social History 38 (1993): 105–25.

15. This will be the subject of a Scholarly Controversy (among Charles Tilly and others) in ILWCH 47 (Spring 1995).

16. Roberts, E. M., A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working-Class Women, 1890–1940 (Oxford, 1984) (a successor volume is forthcoming);Google ScholarCross, Gary, A Quest for Time: The Reduction of Work in Britain and France, 1890–1940 (Berkeley, 1989);Google Scholaridem, Time and Money:.The Making of Consumer Culture (London, 1993); Winter, J.M., “Paris, London, and Berlin: Capital Cities at War, 1914–1920”, International Labor and Working-Class History 44 (1993); 106–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar