Labor history (or labour history) is a broad field of study concerned with the development of the labor movement and the working class. The central concerns of labor historians include the development of labor unions, strikes, lockouts and protest movements, industrial relations, and the progress of working class and socialist political parties, as well as the social and cultural development of working people. Labor historians may also concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity and other factors besides class. The labour movement (or labor movement) is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments. ... Child labour or labor is the phenomenon of children in employment. ... 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. ... In classical economics and all micro-economics labour is a measure of the work done by human beings and is one of three factors of production, the others being land and capital. ... Labour law (American English: labor) or employment law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which addresses the legal rights of, and restrictions on, workers and their organisations. ... Labor rights are laws created in order to always have fairness and keep peace between employees and employers. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Labor History Timeline 1790s - 1800s - 1810s - 1820s - 1830s - 1840s - 1850s - 1860s - 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1790s 1797 United States Profit sharing originated at Albert Gallatins glass works in New Geneva, Pennsylvania. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... A general strike is a strike action by an entire labour force in a city, region or country. ... The following is a list of deliberate absence from work related to specific working conditions (strikes) or due to general unhappiness with the political order (general strikes). ... Syndicalism refers to a set of ideas, movements and tendencies which share the avowed aim of transforming capitalist society through action by the working class on the industrial front. ... Social Movement Unionism is a trend of theory and practice in contemporary trade unionism. ... This is a list of trade unions and union federations by country. ... The labor movement (or labour movement) is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... The field of labor relations looks at the relationship between management and workers, particularly groups of workers represented by a labor union. ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ...

Labor history developed in tandem with the growth of a self-conscious working-class political movement in many Western countries in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whilst early labor historians were drawn to protest movements such as Luddism and Chartism, the focus of labor history was often on institutions: chiefly the labor unions and political parties. Exponents of this institutional approach included Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The work of the Webbs, and other pioneers of the discipline, was marked by optimism about the capacity of the labor movement to effect fundamental social change and a tendency to see its development as a process of steady, inevitable and unstoppable progress. As two contemporary labor historians have noted, early work in the field was 'designed to service and celebrate the Labour movement.' (M. Savage and . A. Miles, The Remaking of the British Working Class, 1840-1940, p. 1). 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. ... Chartism was a movement for social and political reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century. ... Categories: UK Labour Party politicians | British MPs | Peers | Secretaries of State for the Colonies (UK) | 1859 births | 1947 deaths | People stubs ... Beatrice Webb Martha Beatrice Potter Webb (January 2, 1858 - April 30, 1943) (also called Beatrice Webb) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, usually referred to in the same breath as her husband, Sidney Webb. ...

In the 1950s and 1960s, labor history was redefined and expanded in focus by a number of historians, amongst whom the most prominent and influential figures were E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. Thompson and Hobsbawm were both Marxists and were critical of the existing labor movement. They were concerned to approach history from below and to explore the agency and activity of working people at the workplace, in protest movements and in social and cultural activities. Thompson's seminal study The Making of the English Working Class was particularly influential in setting a new agenda for labor historians and locating the importance of the study of labor for social history in general. Also in the 1950s and 1960s, historians began to give serious attention to groups who had previously been largely neglected, such as women and non-caucasian ethnic groups. Some historians situated their studies of gender and race within a class analysis: for example, C. L. R. James, a Marxsist who wrote about the struggles of blacks in the Haitian Revolution. Others questioned whether class was a more important social category than gender or race and pointed to racism, patriarchy and other examples of division and oppression within the working class. The 1950s were the decade that traditionally speaking, spanned the years 1950 through 1959. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... Edward Palmer Thompson (February 3, 1924 - August 28, 1993), was a British historian, socialist and peace campaigner. ... Dr Eric John Blair Hobsbawm CH (born June 9, 1917) is a British Marxist historian and author, once the leading theorist of the defunct Communist Party of Great Britain. ... The Making of the English Working Class is an influential work of English social history, written by E. P. Thompson a notable a New Left historian; it was published in 1963 (revised 1968) by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and later republished at Pelican, becoming an early Open University Set Book. ... Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989) was a journalist, and a prominent socialist theorist and writer. ... Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... The Haitian Revolution was the first and only successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere and established Haiti as a free, black republic, the first of its kind. ...

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

Despite the influence of the Marxists, many labor historians rejected the revolutionary implications implicit in the work of Thompson, Hobsbawm et al. In the 1980s, the importance of class itself, as an historical social relationship and explanatory concept, began to be widely challenged. Some notable labor historians turned from Marxism to embrace a postmodernist approach, emphasising the importance of language and questioning whether classes could be so considered if they did not use a 'language of class'. Other historians emphasised the weaknesses and moderation of the historic labor movement, arguing that social development had been characterised more by accommodation, acceptance of the social order and cross-class collaboration than by conflict and dramatic change. Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

See also

• New Left
• Communist Party Historians Group
• Subaltern Studies