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My dissertation addresses representations of the young women of Vancouver's working class, who, in the first part of the twentieth century, became touchstones for judgements on city life, work, and morality. Young, single, wage-earning women were something new and troubling to the middleclass administrators and social critics of the time. While the city's numerous single working men, with their overcrowded dwellings and tendencies to unionize, were considered somewhat disorderly, the necessity of their presence was never questioned. "Working girls,"on the other hand, seemed to embody all that was unnerving and unnatural about modern times: the disintegration of the family, the independence of women, and the promiscuity of city life. These kinds of anxieties were not unique to Vancouver: the issue of wage-earning women was deemed a "social problem" in various western cities. But Vancouver's singular geopolitical situation meant that these anxieties were exacerbated and amplified in distinct and curious ways. In 1922, for instance, a law was passed "for the protection of women and girls" which prohibited white women from working alongside Asian men. What combination of racism, paternalism, and moral panic gave rise to such legislation? And how did the women react to being controlled and judged by such assumptions? Rather than viewing the problems of wage-earning women as coextensive with those of working men - problems of wages, working conditions, and workers' rights - social administrators and reformers focussed largely on the moral implications of women's entrance into the workplace, particularly insofar as it represented a break from traditional Victorian ideals of domestic femininity. Denied the recognition afforded male workers as members of the labour force and economic agents, working women suffered various disadvantages in the workplace, their wages barely enough to survive on, and their rights as workers ignored by employers and union leaders alike. The tendency in historical accounts of Canada to overlook or underestimate the importance of women's work is undoubtedly in part due to the ideological disinclination to see or to represent women as workers rather than as wives and mothers. This is why my analysis focusses on the politics of gender and representation, for it is through representational conventions that women were pressured to embody a traditional domestic role, and likewise it is through a representational agenda that women were denied recognition as valuable workers.

Nous avons analysé le rapport annuel produit en 1999 par l’Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail du Québec et nous avons constaté que, dans les professions et secteurs concernés par les études financées, le pourcentage moyen de femmes est de 15 % (comparé à 45 % de femmes parmi la population au travail). Douze populations étudiées sont équilibrées ou composées en majorité de femmes, et 76 sont composées d’hommes à plus de deux tiers. Le montant moyen accordé aux études sur une population équilibrée ou majoritairement composée de femmes était de 86 339 $ comparativement à 114 480 $ pour les autres. Nous considérons plusieurs hypothèses d’explication de ces différences. Nous concluons que, peu importe la cause, un effort soutenu de recherche ciblée vers les emplois des femmes est essentiel, en plus d’une analyse différenciée en santé au travail.

The article reviews the book, "Nos temps modernes," by Daniel Cohen.

The article reviews the book, "Unafrican Americans: Nineteenth century black nationalists and the civilizing mission," by Tunde Adeleke.

The article reviews the book, "Coercion. Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century," by Robert J. Steinfeld.

Before 1950, the greatest number of Newfoundland farmers lived in the St. John's area. They and the townsfolk were interdependent, with the farmers providing meat, poultry, garden and dairy products to the city, while St. John's served as a ready market and a source of cash income. Although many street names serve as reminders of those who once worked the land, and others perpetuate old homesteads, the farmers of St. John's are as unknown today as though they had never been. Cows Don't Know It's Sunday gives a historical overview of farming and its importance to the economy of Newfoundland, and describes in detail, using the words of more than eighty people who grew up on or near farms, what it was like to farm in and around St. John's in the period within living memory. Farmers worked seven days a week throughout the year. This study of both the work life and social life of the farmers of St. John's is a tribute to the farming families who were the mainstay of the city during the first half of the twentieth century. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "A Fishery for Modern Times: The State and the Industrialization of the Newfoundland Fishery, 1934-1968," by Miriam Wright.

The article reviews the book, "Demography, state and society: Irish migration to Britain, 1921-1971," by Enda Delaney.

The article reviews the book, "Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation," by Nancy F. Cott.

Modern Irish labour history dates from the mid 1970s, years that saw the foundation of the Irish Labour History Society in 1973 and the launch of its annual journal, Saothar in 1975. While steady progress has since been made, the subject suffers from a popular perception of labour as marginal, a reluctance within the trade union movement to recover its often fractious past, and academic neglect. Ireland was not deeply affected by the “crisis” in labour history in the 1990s. It is likely that the flow of publications will continue. But without full-time practitioners, progress in method and theory will be patchy.

Unions may be viewed as a central institution of capitalist democracies. This paper updates aspects of Porter's work on labour and the labour elite in Canada (1965: Ch. 10-11). Conventional measures indicate that the power of the labour movement in Canada increased after Porter studied it around 1960 but that it has subsequently declined. Support from ideological and state elites seems to have followed a similar rise and decline pattern. Foreign influence has been considerably reduced. The movement remains highly decentralized. In contrast to the situation in 1960, unions are now notably female, white collar and public sector. A partial study of the social characteristics of the labour elite indicates that its ethnic origins have become less British and more French Canadian. The "other ethnic" proportion of the elite has been stable. Virtually no visible minority representation was detected. Given changes in the ethno-racial composition of the population, it would appear that under-representation of the non Charter Group categories has increased significantly over the past four decades. Conversely, female representation in the elite has grown substantially. /// Les syndicats peuvent être considérés comme une institution centrale des démocraties capitalistes. Cet article remet à jour certains aspects des travaux de Porter sur l'élite ouvrière au Canada (1965: chapitres 10-11). Les mesures conventionnelles indiquent que le pouvoir du mouvement ouvrier au Canada s'est accru après les études de Porter aux environs de 1960, mais qu'il a connu un déclin par la suite. Le soutien des élites idéologiques et d'état semble avoir suivi un schéma d'essor et de déclin identique. L'influence de l'étranger s'est considérablement réduite. Le mouvement demeure largement decentralize. En contraste avec la situation de 1960, les syndicats comprennent maintenant une majorité de femmes, de cols blancs et d'employés du secteur public. Une étude partielle des caractéristiques sociales de l'élite ouvrière indique que ses origines ethniques sont devenues moins britanniques et davantage canadiennes-françaises. La proportion d'autres ethnics au sein de l'élite est restée stable. Pratiquernent aucune représentation d'une minorité visible n'a été détectée. Étant donné les changements dans la composition ethno-raciale de la population, il semblerait que la sous-représentation des catégories autres que celles du Groupe de la Charte (c'est-à-dire britannique et français) s'est singulièrement accrue au cours des quatre dernières décennies. Inversement la représentation des femmes au sein de l'élite a augmenté de manière significative.

The article reviews the book, "Democratic equality: What went wrong?," edited by Ed Broadbent.

Welcome to the website of the research network for: The Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning in the New Economy: National and Case Study Perspectives. A grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), complementing work begun by the NALL (New Approaches to Lifelong Learning) research network, WALL is a part of the Initiative for the New Economy (INE), which aims to help Canadians understand and benefit from the ways in which the global economy is being transformed. Our network of investigators is composed of researchers from seven universities and more than 10 co-investigators from community groups and professional institutions across Canada. Benefiting from the contributions of international advisors, the WALL research network endeavours to identify gaps in workplace training and education in Canada and bring visibility to current learning and work issues and trends. --Website description

The introduction discusses the 50th anniversary volume of Labour/Le Travail and explains the journal's ongoing efforts to cover the labour studies field.

This paper commences with a suggestion that “the British Marxists” may well be a more diverse group than has generally been recognized. It concerns itself with the formation of the first British New Left in the1950s. The content of the E.P. Thompson and John Saville edited journal, The New Reasoner is examined, with attention paid to the publication’s internationalism, its use of critical social science, the accent placed on culture, and the stress on organization. To the extent that The New Reasoner failed in its in tended aim of building and sustaining a New Left, the paper closes with some suggestions about the implications of this failure, especially as it related to E.P. Thompson’s historiographical contributions, in which the influence of The Making of the English Working Class (London 1963) loomed large.

The article reviews the book, "The Marshall Decision and Native Rights," by Ken Coates.

Australian labour history remains a vigorous area of intellectual activity. Labour History, the journal of the Australian society, is celebrating its 40th anniversary and publishes a considerable number of articles. Other important sources of Australian labour history such as books, national conference proceedings, and branch publications highlight the links between academic labour historians and the broader community. One important contribution of Labour/Le Travail to Australian labour historiography was the Australian/Canadian comparative labour history project, which gave Australians the confidence to organise national conferences and develop the comparative dimension of labour history.