History 6075
Advanced Studies in Labour and
Working-Class History
Time: Wednesday, 7:30-10:00 p.m. G.S. Kealey
A-4004 A-1009
h 726-4778
o 737-4340 or 2144
Description:
An examination of the historiography of labour and working-class history in England, the
United States, and Canada.
Assignments and Grading:
Book Review 20 (due second class in February)
Class Participation 20
Class Presentation 20
Essay 40 (due last class in March)
Suggested Texts (all on reserve):
W.J.C. Cherwinski and G.S. Kealey, Lectures in Labour and Working-Class History (St.
John's: CCLH, 1985).
H.G. Gutman, Work, Culture and Society (NY: Vintage, 1976).
H.G. Gutman, Power and Culture (NY: Pantheon, 1988).
H.G. Gutman, et al., Who Built America? 2 vols. (NY: Pantheon, 1992).
H. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians (Oxford: Polity, 1984).
H. Kaye and K. McClelland, E.P. Thompson (Oxford: Polity, 1990).
G.S. Kealey, Class, Community and the Labour Movement (St. John's: LLAFUR/CCLH, 1989).
G.S. Kealey, Class, Gender and Region (St. John's: CCLH, 1988).
G.S. Kealey, Toronto Workers (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).
G.S. Kealey and B.D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be (Toronto: New Hogtown Press,
1987).
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I (London: Penguin, 1976).
D. Montgomery, Fall of the House of Labor (NY: Cambridge, 1989).
B.D. Palmer, The Making of E.P. Thompson (Toronto: New Hogtown Press, 1983).
B.D. Palmer, Descent Into Discourse (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
B.D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 2 ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1992).
Joy Parr, Gender of Breadwinners (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working-Class (London: Penguin, 1963).
E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common (New York: New Press, 1991).
History 6075
Advanced Studies in Labour and
Working-Class History
Seminar Schedule
12 January I. Introduction and Library Tour (M. Lonardo)
19 January II. Labour History - British Roots
26 January III. Labour History - U.S. Roots
2 February IV. Labour History - Canadian Roots
9 February V. Labour & Working-Class History - E.J. Hobsbawm
16 February VI. Labour & Working-Class History - E.P. Thompson
23 February VII. Labour & Working-Class History - H.G. Gutman
2 March VIII. Labour & Working-Class History - David Montgomery
9 March IX. Labour & Working-Class History - Canada's "1st Generation"
16 March X. Labour & Working-Class History - Canada's "2nd Generation"
23 March XI. Labour & Working-Class History - and Gender
30 March XII. Labour & Working-Class History - and Language
6 April XIII. Towards a Newfoundland Labour and Working-Class
History
(S. Cadigan) Major Bibliographies in Labour and Working-Class History
Canada
R.G. Hann, et al., comps. Primary Sources in Canadian Working-Class History (1973).
Labour/Le Travail, ongoing bibliography.
Douglas Vaisey, The Labour Companion (1980).
Peter Weinrich, Social Protest from the Left in Canada (1982).
Britain
Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, (now Labour History Review) ongoing
bibliography.
Harold Smith, The British Labour Movement to 1970: A Bibliography (1981).
United States
Labor History, annual bibliography.
James C. McBrearty, American Labor History: A Selected Bibliography (1974).
Maurice F. Neufeld, et al. American Working-Class History: A Representative Bibliography
(1983).
Major Journals in Labour and Working-Class History
Britain
Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History (now Labour History Review)
History Workshop (HW).
New Left Review (NLR).
Social History (SH).
Canada
Bulletin RCHTQ.
Labour/Le Travail (L/LT).
Studies in Political Economy (SPE).
left history.
United States
International Labor and Working-Class History (ILWCH).
Labor History (LH).
Radical History Review (RHR).
Other
Labour History (Australia).
Le Mouvement Sociale (France).
Major Surveys of Labour and Working-Class History
Canada
Eugene Forsey, Trade Unions in Canada, 1812-1902 (1982).
Craig Heron, The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History (1989).
Charles Lipton, The Trade Union Movement of Canada (1973).
Harold Logan, Trade Unions in Canada (1948).
Desmond Morton, Working People (1984).
Bryan Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 2nd edition (1992).
Britain
James Cronin, Labour and Society in Britain, 1918-1979 (1984).
Alan Fox, History & Heritage: The Social Origins of the British Industrial Relations System
(1985).
James Hinton, Labour and Socialism, 1867-1974 (1983).
Eric Hopkins, A Social History of the English Working Classes (1979).
E.H. Hunt, British Labour History, 1815-1914 (1981).
David Kynaston, King Labour: The British Working Class, 1815-1914 (1976).
Henry Pelling, A History of British Trade Unionism (1971).
Richard Price, Labour in British Society (1986).
John Saville, The Labour Movement in Britain (1988).
B. & S. Webb, A History of Trade Unionism (1920).
United States
Thomas R. Brooks, Toil and Trouble (1971).
J.R. Commons, History of Labor in the U.S., 4 vols. (1918-35).
Melvyn Dubofsky, Industrialism and the American Worker (1985).
Ronald Filippelli, Labor in the USA: A History (1984).
Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the US, 8 vols. (1947- ).
James R. Green, The World of the Worker (1980). Week 1 - Introduction
General discussion and assignment of seminar topics, written work, etc.
Followed by Library Tour with Michael Lonardo Week 2 - Labour History - British Roots
Primary
G.D.H. Cole and Raymond Postgate, The Common People (1938).
G.D.H. Cole, A Short History of the British Working-Class Movement (1947).
M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1947), 1-319.
J. & B. Hammond, The Village Labourer (1911).
The Town Labourer (1917).
The Skilled Labourer (1920).
A.L. Morton, A People's History of England.
B. & S. Webb, History of Trade Unionism (1894).
Industrial Democracy
Our Partnership.
Secondary
Asa Briggs and John Saville, eds. Essays in Labour History (1960), 3-40.
Margaret Cole, Life of G.D.H. Cole (1971).
Royden Harrison, "The Webbs as Historians of Trade Unionism," 322-326 in Raphael Samuel,
ed. People's History and Socialist Theory (1981).
Richard Johnson, "Culture and the Historians," 41-71 in John Clarke, Chas Critcher, and
Richard Johnson, eds., Working Class Culture. Studies in History and Theory (1974).
Harvey Kaye, British Marxist Historians, ch. 2.
David Sutton, "Radical Liberalism, Fabianism and Social History," 15-43 in Richard Johnson,
et al., eds., Making Histories: Studies in History Writing and Politics (1982).
Maurice Cornforth, "A.L. Morton," in his Rebels and Their Causes (1978), 7-20.
Raphael Samuel, "British Marxist Historians, 1880-1980," NLR, 120 (1980), 21-96.
Week 3 Labour History - U.S. Roots
Primary
J.R. Commons, "American Shoemakers, 1648-1895," Quarterly Journal of Economics (1909),
39-83.
J.R. Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, 10 vols., (1910).
History of Labour in the US, 4 vols. (1918-1935).
Philip Foner, History of the Labour Movement in the US, 8 vols. (1947- )
Selig Perlman, Theory of the Labor Movement (1928).
Philip Taft, The AFL in the Time of Gompers (1959).
Secondary
John A. DeBrizzi, Ideology and the Rise of Labor Theory in America (1983).
John R. Commons, Myself (1936).
M. Dubofsky, "Give us that old time labor history," LH, 26 (1985), 118-37.
Richard Ely, Ground Under Our Feet (1938).
Maurice Isserman, "God Bless Our American Institutions: The Labor History of John R.
Commons," Labor History 17 (1976), 309-28.
Paul McNulty, The Origins and Development of Labor Economics (1980).
Mark Perlman, Labor Union Theories in America (1958).
Special issue on Philip Taft, Labor History, 19 (1978), 5-136.
Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (1981), esp. 98-140.
Leon Fink, "A Memoir of Selig Perlman," Labor History, 32 (1991), 503-25.
Bruce Kaufman, The Origins and Evolution of the Fields of Industrial Relations in the US
(1993), esp. ch.1-3. Week 4 Labour History - Canadian Roots
Primary
Harold Logan, Trade Unions in Canada (1948).
D.C. Masters, The Winnipeg General Strike (1950).
Charles Lipton, Trade Union Movement of Canada (1967).
Eugene Forsey, Trade Unions in Canada (1980).
Stanley Ryerson, Unequal Union (1968).
H. Clare Pentland, Labour and Capital in Canada (1981).
Stuart Jamieson, Times of Trouble (1968).
Ken McNaught, A Prophet in Politics (1959).
Secondary
G.S. Kealey, "Stanley Br‚haut Ryerson," SPE, 9(1982), 103-71.
G.S. Kealey, "H.C. Pentland and the Writing of Canadian Working-Class History," Canadian
Journal of Political and Social Theory, 3(1979), 79-94.
G.S. Kealey, "Writing about Labour," in J.Schultz, ed., Writing about Canada (1990), 145-74.
A. Greer, "Wage Labour and the Transition to Capitalism: A Critique of Pentland," Labour/Le
Travail, 15(1985), 7-22.
B.D. Palmer, "Town, Port and Country: Speculations on the Capitalist Transformation of
Canada," Acadiensis, 12 (1983), 131-9.
Week 5 E.J. Hobsbawm
Primary
Primitive Rebels (1959)
Age of Revolution (1963)
Labouring Men (1964)
Industry and Empire (1968)
Captain Swing (1969)
Bandits (1969)
Revolutionaries (1973)
Age of Capital (1975)
Worlds of Labour (1985)
Age of Empire (1987)
Politics for a Rational Left (1989), Part II.
Echoes of the Marseillaise (1990)
Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (1990) (2nd ed., 1993)
Secondary
Chapter in Abelove, Visions, 27-46.
Chapters in Kaye, British Marxist Historians, 1-22, 131-66.
Bill Schwarz, "The People in History: the Communist Party Historians' Group, 1946-56," in
Making Histories, 44-95.
E.J.H., "The Historians Group of the Communist Party," in Cornforth, ed., Rebels and their
Causes, 21-48.
Eugene Genovese, "The Politics of Class Struggle in the History of Society: An Appraisal of
the Work of E.J. Hobsbawm," in Pat Thane, eds., The Power of the Past, 13-36. Week 6 E.P. Thompson
Primary
Making of the English Working Class (1968)
Whigs and Hunters (1975)
William Morris (1977)
Poverty of Theory (1978)
Writing by Candlelight (1981)
Exterminism and Cold War (1982)
The Heavy Dancers (1985)
The Skyaos Papers (1988)
Customs in Common (1991)
The Mark of the Beast: William Blake and Moral Law (1993)
Secondary
B. Palmer, Making of E.P. Thompson
Chapter in Kaye, British Marxist Historians, 167-220.
Chapter in Abelove, Visions, 3-25.
G.McLennan, "E.P. Thompson and the Discipline of Historical Context," in Making Histories,
96-132.
"Culturalism: Debates about the Poverty of Theory," in R. Samuel, ed., People's History and
Socialist Theory, 375-409.
E.K. Trimberger, "E.P.T.: Understanding the Process of History," in T. Skocpol, ed., Vision
and Method in historical Sociology.
P. Anderson, "Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism," NLR, 35 (1966), 2-42.
P. Anderson, Arguments Within English Marxism (1980).
Weed 6 (cont'd)
R. Johnson, "Thompson, Genovese, and Socialist-Humanist History," HW, 6 (1978), 79-100
and "Responses," in HW, 7, 8, and 9.
A. Dawley, "E.P.T. and the Peculiarities of the Americans," RHR, 19 (1978-9), 33-59.
H. Kaye and K. McClelland, E.P. Thompson (1990).
Joan Scott, "Women in The Making of the English Working Class" in Gender and the Politics
of History (1988), 68-90.
Bryan Palmer, "Homage to E.P. Thompson," Labour/Le Travail, 32 and 33 (forthcoming).
Blackburn, Corfield, Linebaugh, "EPT," NLR, 201 (1993), 3-33.
D. Levine, "Proto-Nothing: EPT's Custom's in Common," SH, 18 (1993), 381-90.
Corrigan, Linebaugh, Palmer, "Reflections on EPT," left history, 1, 2 (1993), 89-120. Week 7 H.G. Gutman
Primary
Work, Society and Culture (1976)
The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (1976)
Slavery and the Numbers Game (1976)
Power and Culture (1987)
Who Built America, 2 vols (1989 and 1992)
Secondary
Chapter in Abelove, Visions, 185-216.
Ira Berlin, "Introduction," Culture and Power, 3-69.
G.S. Kealey, "H.G. Gutman and the Writing of Working-Class History," Monthly Review 38,
1 (May 1986), 22-30.
G.S. Kealey, "Gutman and Montgomery," ILWCH, 37 (1990), 58-68.
Labour History, 29 (1988), 295-405.
David Roediger, "What was so great about Herbert Gutman?" Labour/Le Travail, 23 (1989),
255-61.
E.D. Genovese and E.F. Genovese, "The Political Crisis of Social History: A Marxian
Perspective," JSH, 10 (1976), 205-20.
L. MacDonnell, "You are too sentimental: Problems and syggestions for a New Labor
History," JSH, 17 (1984), 629-54.
D. Montgomery, "Gutman's Ninteenth-Century America," LH, 19 (1978), 416-29. Week 8 David Montgomery
Primary
Beyond Equality (1967)
Workers Control in America (1979)
Fall of the House of Labor (1987)
"Trends in Working-Class History," L/LT, 19 (1987), 13-22.
Secondary
Chapter in Abelove, Visions, 167-84.
"D.M's Fall of the House of Labour: A Round Table Discussion." Radical History Review 40
(1988), 89-114.
Bryan Palmer, "The American Way of Seeing Class," Labour/Le Travail, 24 (1990), 245-52.
"A Symposium on the Fall of the House of Labour," Labor History, 30 (1989), 93-137.
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream (1988), Parts III, IV, and V.
G.S. Kealey, "Gutman & Montgomery," ILWCH, 37 (1990), 58-68.
J. Carroll Moody and Alice Kessler-Harris, Perspectives on American Labor History: The
Problems of Synthethis, Dekalb, 1989.
Leon Fink, "The New Labor History and the Powers of Historical Pessimism," Journal of
American History, 75 (1988), 115-161.
Jonathan Wiener, "Radical Historians and the Crisis in American History, 1969-1980," Journal
of American History, 76 (1989), 399-434 (and surrounding debate and documents).
Week 9 Canada's "First Generation"
Primary
Irving Abella, Nationalism, Communism and Canadian Labour (1972).
Robert Babcock, Gompers in Canada (1973).
David Bercuson, Confrontation at Winnipeg (1974).
David Bercuson, Fools and Wisemen (1978).
Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries (1977).
Secondary
R.G. Hann, "Introduction," Primary Sources in Canadian Working-Class History.
G.S. Kealey, "Introduction," Essays in Canadian Working-Class History (1976).
B.D. Palmer, "Working Class Canada," Queen's Quarterly, 86 (1979), 594-626 or in Berger,
ed., Contemporary Approaches to Canadian History.
G.S. Kealey, "Labour and Working-Class History in Canada," Labour/Le Travail, 7 (1981), 67-
94.
G.S. Kealey, "The Writing of Social History in English Canada," Social History, 10 (1985),
347-66.
G.S. Kealey, "Writing about Class," in John Schulz, ed., Writing About Canada.
Week 10 Canada's "Second Generation"
Primary
G.S. Kealey, Toronto Workers (1991), 2nd ed.
G.S. Kealey and B.D. Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be (1982).
B.D. Palmer, A Culture in Conflict (1979).
B.D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience (1992).
Secondary
Ramsay Cook, "The Making of Canadian Working-Class History," Historical Reflections, 10
(1983), 115-26.
Richard Price, "Class Formation in Canada: Some Recent Studies," Acadiensis, 13 (1983),
175-83.
David Bercuson, "Through the Looking Class of Culture," Labour/Le Travail, 7 (1981), 95-112.
Ken McNaught, "E.P. Thomspon vs. Harold Logan: Writing about Labour and the Left," CHR,
62 (1981), 141-68.
Des Morton, "E.P. Thomspon dans...," RHAF, 37 (1983), 165-84.
Ian McKay, "The Three Faces of Canadian Labour History," HW, 24 (1987), 172-8.
Richard Rice, "Sailortown: Theory and Method in Ordinary People's History," Acadiensis, 13
(1983), 154-67.
Joanne Burgess, "Exploring the Limited Identities of Canadian Labour: Recent Tranes in
English Canada and in Quebec," International Journal of Canadian Studies, 1-2 (1990),
149-73.
James Naylor, "Working-Class History in English Canada in the 1980s," Acadiensis, 19
(1989), 156-69.
Craig Heron, "?", left history, 1, 1 (1993). Week 11 Gender and Class
Primary
Joy Parr, Gender of Breadwinners (1990)
Bettina Bradbury, Working Families: Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal (1993)
Ruth Frager, Sweatship Strife (1992)
Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality (1989)
Mariana Valverde, Age of Light, Soap and Water (1991)
Secondary
B. Bradbury, "Women's History and Working-Class History," Labour/Le Travail, 19 (1987),
23-43.
B. Bradbury, "Gender at Work and Home," in Kealey and Patmore, Canadian and Australian
Labour History (1990).
M. Rosenfeld, "`It was a hard life': Class and Gender in Work and Family," Historical Papers
(1988), 237-79. Week 12 Language and Class
E.M. Wood, The Retreat from Class (1986).
G. Stedman Jones, The Languages of Class (1983).
B.D. Palmer, Descent into Discourse (1990).
J. Epstein, "Rethinking the Categories of Working-Class History," L/LT, 18 (1986), 195-208.
J. Foster, "The Declassing of Language," NLR, 150 (1985), 29-46.
R. Gray, "The Deconstruction of the English Working Class," SH, 11 (1986), 363-74.
Scott, Palmer, et al., "On Language, Gender, and Class," ILWCH, 31 (1987), 1-36.
Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (1988).
David Mayfield and Susan Thorne, "Social History and its Discontents: Gareth Stedman Jones
and the Politics of Language," SH, 17 (1992), 165-88.
Week 13 Towards a Newfoundland Labour
and Working-Class History
Bill Gillespie, A Class Act (1986).
Ian McDonald, To Each his Own: Coaker and the FPU (1987).
R. Cuff, ed., A Coaker Anthology (1986).
R. Brym and B. Neis, "Regional Factors in the Formation of the F.P.U." in Brym and
Sacournan, eds., Underdevelopment and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada, 203-
18.
Marilyn Porter, "`She was Skipper of the Shore crew:' Notes on the history of the sexual
division of labour in Newfoundland," L/LT, 15 (1985), 105-23.
B.C. Busch, "The Newfoundland Sealers Strike of 1902," L/LT, 14 (1984), 73-101.
G. Sider, Culture and Class in Anthropology and History (1986).
Cyril Strong, My Life as a Newfoundland Union Organizer, 1912-87.
"Special Issue on Newfoundlander Labour," L/LT, 26 (1990).
S. Cadigan, "Economic and Social Relations of Production on the North East Coast of
Newfoundland with Special Reference to Conception Bay, 1985-1855," PhD, MUN,
1991.
D. Sutherland, "Newfoundland Loggers Respond to the Great Depression," L/LT, 29 (1991),
81-116.