Books etc, Commentary

How the study of transnational history could help to revitalize labour history

The rise of comparative and transnational history offers an opportunity to rejuvenate the study of labour history itself, argues Neville Kirk. Here, tracing his own transnational engagement with labour history through more than fifty years of teaching, publication and research across continents, he introduces his recent book on the lives of labour activists Tom Mann and Robert Samuel Ross. While interests in comparative and transnational … Continue reading How the study of transnational history could help to revitalize labour history

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Books etc

Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird, Emmet O’Connor, University College Dublin Press, 2022. The Irish labour historian Austen Morgan dedicated his study of Belfast labour ‘to the “rotten Prods” of Belfast, victims of unionist violence and nationalist myopia.’ A derogatory label used by loyalists/Unionists against Protestant labour activists, it was laced with venom that brought threats, violence and loss of work. For Unionist … Continue reading Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

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Labour history news

The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

With the Labour Party on the verge of forming its first government, one of the country’s most glamorous aristocrats decided to offer her childhood home to the party as a ‘Labour Chequers’. Mark Crail looks at what happened next. Liverpool Street Station would have been a hubbub of activity on the afternoon of Friday, 23 March 1923. But as commuters hurried for their rush-hour trains … Continue reading The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

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Events

From student unions to trade unions: campus-based activism and beyond

This conference explored the different ways in which campus-based activism linked to wider goals of social and political change as well as tracing the conflicts that emerged in such settings. It brought together historians working on different countries and regions, with discussions that encourage comparative and transnational perspectives. The conference consisted of a two-day in-person workshop at Northumbria University (held on 12 and 13 January … Continue reading From student unions to trade unions: campus-based activism and beyond

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Labour history news

Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

There is nothing special about anniversaries. No intrinsic reason to look back at events fifty years ago rather than at the years either side. But just as we mark birthdays and other significant events in our lives, so societies do much the same on a bigger scale, not least as a politically charged means of creating shared histories. But what we choose to commemorate and … Continue reading Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

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Labour history news

Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

What started as a personal collection of labour movement papers has grown into a substantial archive for local, national and international working-class history. Now it has found a home and work is under way to catalogue its contents, writes Peter Higgins. The Birmingham People’s History Archive (BPHA) has been a project long in the planning stage. When Paul Cooper, the archive’s creator, was a student … Continue reading Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

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Books etc

Well read: labour historians recommend books that deserve to be better known

Newspapers and magazines always like to list their ‘best books of the year’ as Christmas approaches. But what if the best books weren’t published this year? Preferring to take a longer perspective, we asked labour historians to tell us about a work relevant to labour history that they felt was overlooked, should be better known – or which simply meant something to them. Here’s what … Continue reading Well read: labour historians recommend books that deserve to be better known

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Books etc, SSLH news

Communist lives in twentieth century Ireland

Above: Mike Mecham presents Meirian Jump of the Marx Memorial Library with a copy of Left Lives in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Vol. 3: Communist Lives, edited by Francis Devine and Patrick Smylie (Umiskin Press, Dublin, April 2020). An inscription in the book reads, ‘Presented by Umiskin Press, Dublin, to the Marx Memorial Library in recognition of its major contribution to the preservation and enhancement of Socialist … Continue reading Communist lives in twentieth century Ireland

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Books etc, Labour history news

Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

Henry Moore is best known for his monumental bronze sculptures. His wartime sketches of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from the Blitz are also widely known and admired. Now a book and accompanying exhibition are drawing attention to a lesser known series of drawings of coal miners at work. Moore was a miner’s son from Castleford in Yorkshire, and commissioned by the … Continue reading Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

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