til the development of wage labour.

The historiography of labor history

Labor historiography developed out of early 20th century attempts to document the history of the working people's movement. This was initially a story of revolutions, bloodshed and union leaders. However, some historians studied the actual status and conditions of individual workers. This lead the Historians Group of the Communist Party of Great Britain to examine labour history. E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm developed a methodology which focused on highlighting the class experience and working lives of people in history. Edward Palmer Thompson (February 3, 1924 - August 28, 1993), was a British historian, socialist and peace campaigner. ... John Edward Christopher Hill (February 6, 1912 _ February 23, 2003) was an English Marxist historian and the author of many history textbooks. ... Eric Hobsbawm (born June 9, 1917) is a British historian and author, once the leading theoretician of the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain. ...

Labor history remains centered on two fundamental interest: institutional histories of workers' organisations, and the "history from below" approach of the Historians Group.

Labor history

Labor history begins with the development of waged labour as a system of social life, at a time between the Black Plague and 1830 in the United Kingdom. This slow process drew more and more workers into a system of alienated labour.

Initial organisations

The initial organisations formed by working people were conspiratorial like the army of General Ned Ludd or luddites. Work related organisations were labelled illegal combinations. These early unions were very transient, and were suppressed more often than not by mass arrests and massacres. The Luddites were a group of English workers in the early 1800s who protested – often by destroying machines – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs. ... In combinatorial mathematics, a combination of members of a set is a subset. ...

Throughout the last half of the Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Eight hour day movement was a central focus for labour organisations. Eight-hour day banner, Melbourne, 1856 The Eight-hour day movement, also known as the Short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. ...

Labor actions, historical tactics

A common tactic was striking, an especially effective strand of which was the sit-down strike which was first used in 1933 and became an effective measure. 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Politics and philosophy

Throughout the early part of the twentieth century, the great question in the labor movement was, craft unionism or industrial unionism? by Leon CunninghamCraft unionism refers to an approach to union organizing in the United States and elsewhere that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft or trade that they work in. ... Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union -- regardless of skill or trade -- thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations. ...

Massacres

In Colorado, coal miners endured the Ludlow Massacre and the Columbine Mine Massacre. Ludlow Massacre Monument The Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914 was one of the bloodiest assaults on organized labor in American history. ... The Columbine Mine Massacre occurred in 1927 when striking coal miners in Colorado were attacked with machine guns. ...

Links to labor memorials

In the United States:

• Workers' memorials
• Memorial monuments and plaques

Labor arts, music and culture

• Labor arts
• Union songs
• AFL-CIO Music
• Working and union songs
• Public Labor activities and festivities in Marin County, California