Labour

You Cannot Stop a River

Laurence Stewart 5 December 202419 February 2025

The ICU was a union-cum-protest movement in the north-west of South Africa in the 1920s and 1930s. Laurence Stewart explores its messages and methods and their relevance today.

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Disabled People’s Activism in Victorian Britain

David Turner 3 October 20244 October 2024

Long before the modern disabled people's movement, people with impairments were claiming disability as a social and political identity. David Turner reflects on the development of disabled people's activism in Victorian Britain.

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The Telegraph From Below

Sebastian James Rose 28 June 202428 June 2024

What can subaltern telegraph workers tell us about empire and its technologies? Sebastian Rose on the agency of labour

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Workshop of the World

Sally Alexander, John Merrick & Marybeth Hamilton 29 February 202428 February 2024

A new collection of Raphael Samuel's essays illuminates 19th century Britain and the politics of "people's history".

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Dr Thomas Garland and the Dream Life of Factory Girls

Sally Alexander 15 February 20244 March 2024

A long-forgotten medical thesis from 1938 uncovers the physical and psychic distress of London factory girls.

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Oil Workers, Revolution & Solidarity in the Caribbean

Ben Gowland 22 December 202321 December 2023

How can workers fight exploitation in a globalised world? What could be learnt from the anti-imperialism of Trinidad & Tobago's oldest trade union?

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Feminism and the Global Justice Movement

Kelsey Walker 23 November 202322 November 2023

How did feminist activists from the US and the Global South influence the Global Justice Movement?

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Dig Where You Stand

Astrid von Rosen & Andrew Flinn 16 November 20237 December 2023

What can we learn from a 45-year-old Swedish manifesto that helped inspire the movement for workers' history?

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Rethinking Place in British Labour History

Diarmaid Kelliher, Ewan Gibbs & Valerie Wright 6 July 20235 July 2023

What do we mean, in post-Brexit Britain, when we talk about “traditional working-class regions”?

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Rethinking Gender in British Labour History

Laura Schwartz, George Stevenson & Karen Bartke 1 June 202331 May 2023

What happens to narratives of British labour history when we incorporate stories of women? Laura Schwartz and George Stevenson explore.

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Rethinking Race in British Labour History

Caroline Bressey, Ryan Hanley, Somak Biswas & Burt Caesar 4 May 202310 May 2023

To mark International Workers Day, we explore three forgotten moments in British history that spotlight the intertwined histories of labour and race.

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The Rising Cost of Loving

Emily Baughan 21 March 20234 April 2023

How can we understand the current wave of strikes as part of a longer struggle around the value of care work? Emily Baughan reflects from the picket line.

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The Ford Strike of 1978 and the ‘Winter of Discontent’

Joseph O'Kane 11 January 202320 January 2023

With strikes happening in numerous sectors, Joseph O' Kane considers how people challenged government and employers over pay and working conditions in the past.

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Radical Objects: Tolpuddle Old Chapel

Philip Martin 25 October 202231 October 2023

What can a dot in the Dorset landscape, marked by a simple chapel, tell us about the Tolpuddle Martyrs and their religious and political convictions? And how might this rare vernacular chapel be restored as a site of living history today?

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Pensions, Friends and Fraternities

Maya Adereth 1 August 202229 October 2022

Why did the British labour movement come to advocate state insurance at the turn of the 20th century? Maya Adereth examines transformations in worker benefit schemes through the lens of Friendly Societies.

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How Last Century’s “Servant Problem” Became Today’s “Labour Shortage”

Maia Silber 6 July 202229 October 2022

How do century-old debates about the "servant problem" reverberate through today's political struggles around migration, labour, exploitation, and race? Maia Silber explores.

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Radical Books: The Napier Report

Andy Drummond 13 April 202229 October 2022

How might a verbose Victorian Parliamentary Report provide a source of radical rural Scottish history? Andy Drummond explores the unlikely story of the 1884 Napier Report.

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The Strike that Made Me: Rosa Campbell

Rosa Campbell 2 March 20224 January 2023

In this piece, Rosa Campbell reflects on the importance of the Maritime Union of Australia dispute of 1998.

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Picket Line Perspectives

Administrator 28 February 202220 December 2022

Universities across the UK are taking part in the current UCU strike action over pay, pensions, and poor working conditions. On day 8 of the 10-day strike, three striking historians give us the view from picket lines across the country.

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Working Class Heroes?

Laura Schwartz 24 November 202129 October 2022

Why, since Brexit, have working class people in Britain come to be thought of as not just white but also male? Laura Schwartz suggests to understand this, we must look at history.

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Nipping Back

Grace Whorrall-Campbell 8 November 202120 January 2023

What can the famous 'Nippy' waitress, a fixture at Lyon's Tea Shops across Britain, teach us about emotions at work?

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Radical Object: Potato Planter at Frating Hall Farm

Ken Worpole 20 October 202120 January 2023

How did Russian anarchism, Teesside socialism and Jewish phenomenology find a home in rural Essex? Ken Worpole delves into the fragile archive of an influential pacifist settlement at Frating Hall farm.

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Taking Photos of the First Women’s Liberation Conference

Chandan Fraser 13 October 202125 February 2025

What was it like to take photos at Britain's first Women's Liberation conference? Chandan Fraser shares her memories and pictures with us.

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Radical Objects: ‘These are not ordinary women’

Urvi Khaitan 9 August 202129 October 2022

Urvi Khaitan explores how US Air Force photos reveal the hidden history of female labour in World War II India.

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Migrant Textile Workers and Irish Activism in Victorian Dundee

Niall Whelehan 9 April 202119 January 2023

In Dundee in the nineteenth century, Irish women employed in the city's jute mills pioneered a new activist organisation, the Irish Ladies Land League, fusing feminism, nationalism, and radical land reform. Niall Whelehan explores.

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‘An Equality of Injustice’: The Sex Buyers’ Bill and Lessons from History

Julia Laite 14 December 202020 January 2023

The "Sex Buyers' Bill" now pending in Parliament aims to protect women from exploitation by criminalizing men who buy sex, yet it is vehemently opposed by UK sex workers. Julia Laite explores the tangled history and woeful consequences of…

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Speculation, Magic Realism, and Minding the Gaps

Sonja Boon 2 September 202020 January 2023

A speculative methodology can also be a deeply political response to the conventions of archival research, argues Sonja Boon in our Writing Radically series.

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Radical Object: A Fragile Commemoration of a Brutal Deportation

Martin Plaut 2 July 202029 October 2022

From a fragile piece of printed tissue, Martin Plaut uncovers the forgotten story of a massive demonstration on the eve of the First World War, protesting the brutal deportation from South Africa to Britain of nine trades union leaders who…

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Striking Solidarity: Friendship and the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike

Diarmaid Kelliher 17 June 202029 October 2022

There are many stories of friendship during the miners’ strike. The importance of this was in part the sense – in the middle of extraordinary hostility from multiple directions – that they weren’t alone. The long-term, mutual and…

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The Death and Life of a Great British Trading Estate

Lisa Edwards 18 May 202031 October 2022

Lisa Edwards explores the troubled history of Slough Trading Estate, a site that acted as a short-lived central depot intended to repair vehicles deployed during the First World War and played a pioneering role in Britain's industrial…

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Labour

What

Where

When

Series

You Cannot Stop a River

Disabled People’s Activism in Victorian Britain

The Telegraph From Below

Workshop of the World

Dr Thomas Garland and the Dream Life of Factory Girls

Oil Workers, Revolution & Solidarity in the Caribbean

Feminism and the Global Justice Movement

Dig Where You Stand

Rethinking Place in British Labour History

Rethinking Gender in British Labour History

Rethinking Race in British Labour History

The Rising Cost of Loving

The Ford Strike of 1978 and the ‘Winter of Discontent’

Radical Objects: Tolpuddle Old Chapel

Pensions, Friends and Fraternities

How Last Century’s “Servant Problem” Became Today’s “Labour Shortage”

Radical Books: The Napier Report

The Strike that Made Me: Rosa Campbell

Picket Line Perspectives

Working Class Heroes?

Nipping Back

Radical Object: Potato Planter at Frating Hall Farm

Taking Photos of the First Women’s Liberation Conference

Radical Objects: ‘These are not ordinary women’

Migrant Textile Workers and Irish Activism in Victorian Dundee

‘An Equality of Injustice’: The Sex Buyers’ Bill and Lessons from History

Speculation, Magic Realism, and Minding the Gaps

Radical Object: A Fragile Commemoration of a Brutal Deportation

Striking Solidarity: Friendship and the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike

The Death and Life of a Great British Trading Estate