Women in the North

The theme of the North West Labour History journal for 2003 will be Women in the North. We invite contributions, covering the period from the late C18th to last week, which take a look at women as political, industrial, social, cultural and community activists. We would like to cover the broadest range of topics:- from suffragettes to punkettes, Clarion cyclists to sit-ins, Chartists to feminists, barmaids to MPs and so forth.

Ambiguities of Work

The Ambiguities of Work: Controlling Knowledge, Controlling Outcomes
A conference at the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 7-8, 2003

From Adam Smith and Karl Marx through Harry Braverman and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., issues of knowledge and control over economic activity have been central to the fields of labor and business history. The famous aphorism attributed to Big Bill Haywood, "The boss's brains are under the workman's cap" captures these tensions, as do recent social science explorations of embedded and tacit knowledge.

Working Class and Suburbia

The Newberry Library Labor History Seminar co-sponsored by the University of Illinois at Chicago and Urbana.

"How the Suburbs Saved the City: A Reconsideration of Working-Class Housing in the Metropolitan Region"
Joseph Bigott
Purdue University Calumet
December 6, 2002, 3:00-5:00 pm

Unequal Freedom

Evelyn Nakano Glenn. Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. ix + 306 pp. Notes index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-00732-8.

Reviewed by Melissa Walker, Department of History and Politics, Converse College. Published by H-Women (August, 2002)

Interlocking Systems of Control

Worker Identity in Russia

The Allan K. Wildman Group for the Study of Russian Workers and Society is pleased to announce the appearance of the article collection, New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918 (paperback, 248 pp., $25.99, ISBN: 0-89357-303-5). The volume, edited by Michael Melancon and Alice K. Pate, is published by Slavica Publishers (www.slavica.com) and includes the following contributions by American and Russian scolars:

Builders in Philadelphia

Donna J. Rilling. Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia, 1790-1850. Series on Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. xii + 261 pp. Tables, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8122-3580-0.

Reviewed for H-SHEAR by Joshua R. Greenberg, Department of History, American University, June 2002

House as a Life

Working Lives Research Institute

Below are two advertisements that will be appearing in the Guardian on October 29 and the following week. They are the first big swathe of appointments in our new Working Lives Research Institute. The first ad is for 5 new posts. I should be grateful if you would publicize these as widely as possible through the movement and via your email lists.