Class and Gender in British Labour History

Renewing the Debate (or starting it?)

Mary Davis

Politics constructs gender and gender constructs politics: this is a central theme in this collection of essays which seek not only to write a history that focus on women’s experiences but seeks also to analyze those dynamic forces that have shaped that history. It examines the ‘making’ of the other half of the working class women- as workers, trade unionists and political activists, and seeks to weave together intricate relationships between class and gender, particularly within the process of industrialization. It is because the class\gender relationship has often been either ignored or misunderstood that it has been possible to write general histories of the labour movement in which women are hardly mentioned.

Contents

Glossary.
Section 1 Introduction and theoretical framework: Mary Davis, The Making of the English Working Class re- visited: Labour History and Marxist Theory.
Section 2 Women & Work
Sian Moore, Gender & Class Consciousness in Industrialization- the Bradford Woollen Industry
Katrina Honeyman, Sweat and sweating- Women Workers and Trade Unions in the Leeds Clothing Trade1880-1980
Sheila Blackburn, ‘The Inspector Can Check a Workroom is Insanitary by Means of His Own Eyes and Nose’- Re-Thinking the Sweatshop in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Linda Clarke & Christine Wall, Skilled versus Qualified Labour; Skilled Versus Qualified Labour- the Exclusion of Women from the Construction Industry
Caroline Bressey, Black women and Work in England 1880–1920 Louise Raw, Striking a Light- Bryant & May Revisited
Catherine Hunt, The Fragility of the Union- the work of the National Federation of Women Workers in the Regions of Britain 1906-1914
Section 3 Women and Politics
Sheila Rowbotham, Alice Wheeldon Revisited;
Annemarie Hughes, Socialist Women in the Inter-War Years.

About the Author

Mary Davis was until August 2009 Professor of Labour History at London Metropolitan University where she was, for many years, head of the Centre for Trade Union Studies and the Deputy Director of the Working Lives Research Institute.