Tag: 1960s

Research bursaries

Harry Griffiths (Bangor) on anti-fascism in South Wales and the North West of England

My PhD research examines the development of anti-fascist activism within industrial communities in twentieth-century Britain. It explores localised anti-fascist movements and how factors such as class, employment, and education influenced political engagement. Focusing on two case studies, South Wales and North West England, the project examines the shared characteristics and distinctive experiences of anti-fascist activism across different industrial regions. While anti-fascism in Britain has received … Continue reading Harry Griffiths (Bangor) on anti-fascism in South Wales and the North West of England

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Labour History Review

Domestic Service and the Labour Movement in Franco-Era Spain: The Young Christian Workers and the Struggles of Domestic Workers (1960–1976)

Author: Diego LatorreThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read this article. The 1960s and 1970s in Spain were a period of intense social mobilization against Franco’s dictatorship. The clandestine and democratic labour movement was the main political agent behind efforts to improve working conditions and to achieve a political transition towards democracy in Spain. However, within this context, domestic … Continue reading Domestic Service and the Labour Movement in Franco-Era Spain: The Young Christian Workers and the Struggles of Domestic Workers (1960–1976)

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Bowen Ran (Rotterdam) on E. P. Thompson and the formation of The Making of the English Working Class

It is one thing to read E. P. Thompson’s published, polished texts; it is quite another to handle the papers he once worked on, to see the rust left by paper clips, the gum pressed between pages, the coffee stains on letterheads, and the quirky cat he drew (surely the same cat he invoked in The Poverty of Theory, where he wrote with characteristic scorn, … Continue reading Bowen Ran (Rotterdam) on E. P. Thompson and the formation of The Making of the English Working Class

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Commentary

‘Labour Romps Home’ in last black and white general election

In 1966, the last general election to be captured on black and white newsreel by British Pathé saw Harold Wilson’s Labour government win a landslide victory, taking 48% of the vote and winning an overall majority of 98. A newsreel from election night shows revellers thronging Trafalgar Square and splashing through the fountains, while at the party’s headquarters in Transport House, Minister of Labour Ray … Continue reading ‘Labour Romps Home’ in last black and white general election

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Books etc

UNITE the Union: a history in six volumes

Liverpool University Press and the Marx Memorial Library & Workers’ School have been trying to make trade union history accessible again with a history of UNITE published in six cheap paperback volumes (each retails at £6.99) from 2022 onwards. We reviewed the first two volumes which covered the history of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the core of UNITE, from 1880 to 1931 in … Continue reading UNITE the Union: a history in six volumes

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Notes & queries

Researching an oral history of the New Left

Do you have memories of the New Left? Andrew Whitehead would like to hear from you. The New Left was a strand in British radicalism which distanced itself from both Stalinism and social democracy and proved to be an enduring and influential part of the left. It emerged in 1956, the year of Khruschev’s ‘secret’ speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality, as well as of the … Continue reading Researching an oral history of the New Left

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Commentary

In tune: The Ballad of Joe Hill

Continuing our series of songs in labour history, Keith Laybourn discusses a protest ballad performed throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first by some of the biggest names in American music. ‘I Dreamed, I Saw Joe Hill Last Night’ is often known as ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’. I first came across this ballad in the 1960s through a combination of events. From the … Continue reading In tune: The Ballad of Joe Hill

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Labour history news

The Making of the English Working Class: sixtieth anniversary broadcasts

This year sees the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of E.P. Thompson’s influential and much admired The Making of the English Working Class (Victor Gollancz, 1963). BBC Radio Three’s The Essay this week marks the event with a series of five programmes under the title ‘The Enormous Condescension of Posterity’ – a phrase taken from Thompson’s preface. The series runs nightly at 22:45 for 15 minutes from Monday … Continue reading The Making of the English Working Class: sixtieth anniversary broadcasts

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Commentary

The Working Class in Twentieth-Century Song: A Fan’s Notes

Opening a website series on songs associated with labour history, John McIlroy looks at ‘The Working Class in Twentieth-Century Song: A Fan’s Notes[1]’ arguing that researching the genealogy of songs, finding new ones, rediscovering old ones, exploring the cultural ambience in which they were created and performed is part of the folklorist’s mission and the historian’s brief. Find out more about this series. IntroductionThe Great … Continue reading The Working Class in Twentieth-Century Song: A Fan’s Notes

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