Working Out Gender Perspectives from Labour History

Working out Gender brings together leading scholars and young researchers to examine the various ways in which gender is currently being used in labour history. Having been a dynamic and contentious category of historical analysis since the mid 1980s gender continues to incite much debate. This volume seeks a more informed view about labour history both by advancing the position of women and making their lives central to learning and by examining men as gendered persons and discussing the social construction of masculinity. A broad perspective of labour history is scrutinised on both sides of the Atlantic, though the emphasis is given to European experiences. Themes examined include work and workplace activities, the working classes, masculinity and politics, and the timespan ranges from the eighteenth century to recent times.

Contents: Introduction; Margaret Walsh; New entry points from USA women’s labour history, Sheila Rowbotham; Gendering work in eighteenth-century towns, Deborah Simonton; Age and gender at the workplace: the historical experiences of young people in Western Europe and North America, Colin Heywood; The making of men: masculinities in interwar Liverpool, Pat Ayers; ’Whoring, drinking sailors’: reflections on masculinity from the labour history of 19th-century British shipping, Valerie Burton; Gendering the stories of socialism: an essay in historical criticism, June Hannam and Karen Hunt; ’Giving them something to do’: how the early ILP appealed to women, Krista Cowman; From the periphery to the centre: changing perspectives on American farm women, Margaret Walsh; Gender and technology: inverting established patterns. The Lancashire cotton weaving industry at the start of the twentieth century, Jutta Schwarzkopf; Equal pay for equal work?: a new look at gender and wages in the Lancashire cotton industry, 1790-1855, Janet Greenlees; Gendering cultures in business and labour history: marriage bars in clerical employment, Robert Bennett; ’Treading the double path’: American women’s strategies for legal careers in the interwar generation, c.1920-1941, Fiona Brown; Index.

Margaret Walsh