Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History is celebrating sixty years of its journal, Labour History, this month with the publication of a 200-plus page issue which takes the opportunity of this significant anniversary ‘to pause, reflect, take stock, look back and see forward’, as editor Diane Kirkby puts it in an opening editorial. She continues: ‘With a combination of reflections, new research … Continue reading Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

Classics of labour history: a research programme for the 1960s and beyond

The Society for the Study of Labour History was launched on 6 May 1960 in a meeting room at Birkbeck College, University of London. Those present included many of the big names of what was then a rapidly rising specialist area of historical study, including Raymond Postgate and Henry Pelling. Others, among them Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband, were yet to publish much of the … Continue reading Classics of labour history: a research programme for the 1960s and beyond

Classics of labour history: Malcolm Chase and the story of Chartism

Chartism has been a central part of labour history since the discipline emerged. A brief flurry of activity in the early 1920s led nowhere in particular, but Professor Asa Briggs’ Chartist Studies (1959) opened the door to what Dr Stephen Roberts has dubbed a ‘golden period’ of research and publication (see below). Dorothy Thompson, meanwhile, led the intellectual effort to centre Chartism not just as … Continue reading Classics of labour history: Malcolm Chase and the story of Chartism