From the Labour Question to the Labour History Question

The essays in these collections, several of which were published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of England's Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), address numerous issues that will undoubtedly interest historians of labour and the working class: the development of labour history associations, the relationship between scholarship and labour activism, the tensions between public and academic history, the political orientation of labour historians, the emergence of professional conferences and peer-reviewed journals, methodological innovations, and the overall state of the field today. Anniversaries, especially this one, which also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the US journal, Labor History, provide a good opportunity to reflect on the subject's health and even predict future developments.¹ For the most part, the articles under review will spark curiosity, raise questions, and stimulate further debate and discussion.

Some historians seeking to make sense of the place of labour history in the academy tell a rise-and-fall story, one that accounts for scholars' early institutional focus, celebrates the groundbreaking Anglo-American historiographical innovations of the 1960s and 70s, and finally bemoans the conservative "backlash" of the 1980s and 90s. By this time, labour history in many, though not all, countries showed distinctive signs of weakness compared to other areas of history. Currently, sizable numbers of university-based historians write on, say, gender, race, culture, and politics while excluding labour or class.

How do we explain this? First, one must identify the sources of the problem. It is fair to say that resistance to labour history generally, and to class analysis in particular, comes from two corners of the academy. First, business-aligned conservative administrators, particularly those in the US, have attacked, and in some cases dismantled, labour studies departments, including those that have educated trade unionists. Second, and more relevant to this paper, departmental-based scholarly trend-setters have, with greater subtlety than their cost-cutting administrative colleagues, challenged the subject academically, insisting that labour and working-class history is no longer fashionable. These critics have claimed, both in print and especially during informal conversations and in seminars, that labour history has become passé and even boring, and class approaches to the past are reductionist. Such figures, who often contribute to departmental hiring and course selection decisions, have played a part in un-making labour history at their respective institutions.

It is mostly correct that labour history's current place in the academy, in light of these multilayered assaults, is not as strong as it once was, but many of the scholarly criticisms of labour and working-class history appear thoroughly wrongheaded. The collections under review note the exciting, innovative, and nuanced work produced by labour historians over the last fifty years. Indeed, researchers continue to write imaginative studies that link class to ethnicity, gender, race, and the state, and in the process have provoked vigorous debates. Few serious examinations of the subfield can avoid recognizing the wide-ranging assortment of subjects that concern such historians: formal and informal workers, agricultural and industrial labourers, free and coerced labour, industrial relations, labour and law, the various ways in which ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality have intersected with class, local and international working-class struggles, etc. In recent years, scholars have written about topics as varied as Canadian strippers, Indian street vendors, and Irish nuns. Some study labour as a movement; others have shown an interest in the dynamics of working-class communities. Given the assortment of studies produced over the past five decades, sober-minded observers cannot honestly dismiss labour history as narrow or old fashioned.

The articles in these collections are a testament to the rich, global tradition of labour and working-class...