The article deals with the development of Catalan cotton textile trade unionism between 1890 and 1914. It has been argued that, given the economic difficulties which faced the cotton textile industry, employers were anxious to cut labour costs and unwilling to negotiate with trade unions. Between 1889 and 1891, therefore, they launched an attack on trade-union organisation within the industry. In many rural areas they were able to impose their will with relatively little difficulty. In urban Catalonia, however, they faced stiffer opposition. The state's response to labour unrest was not uniform. Nevertheless, at crucial moments the authorities supported the mill owners' assaults on labour organisation. The result was to radicalise the cotton textile labour force. This could be seen in the growing influence of socialists and anarchists in the textile unions' ranks, and in the increasing willingness of the textile workers to use general strike tactics.

The militancy of maritime workers led worldwide to strikes of great magnitude, visibility and impact. In many countries these strikes had vast repercussions for the industrial and political development of the labour movement. As this comparative overview of maritime labour and unionism in some ten countries shows, however, after the first wave of strikes two conflicting tendencies arose which became a permanent feature of the maritime scene. The men themselves never lost their potential for militant action and adherence to radical ideologies. By contrast, many union leaders became increasingly pragmatic and even accommodationist. This article investigates the causes of this dichotomy and assesses the resulting tensions and conflicts. In many ports these led to break-away moves, spontaneous action and the replacement of moderate by radical leaders. In others the pragmatic tendency survived in power. This included a strong interest in alliances with adjacent unions and international unions.

The early labour movements in Western Europe and North America were all dominated by urban artisans, a fact reflected most clearly at the programmatic level by the prominence of demands for producers' cooperatives. This article presents a proposal for and an extremely brief sketch of a comparative investigation of this first phase of the labour movement in England, France, Germany, and the United States. Different aspects of class formation, such as the economic situation of the trades, the social relationships within them, or the role of artisanal and corporate traditions in artisanal politics and trade-union organization, are discussed. Comparative labour history, it is argued, must employ such a theoretical framework, one that allows the integration of the many dimensions of class formation; otherwise it will have to sacrifice whatever progress the last generation of labour historians has achieved.

As English urban society overhauled its systems of policing, poor relief and labour discipline in the early nineteenth century, one form of interaction between classes to become problematical was the act of giving to beggars. While economic ideology endorsed a more calculating approach to the relief of distress, social and religious ideology preached the necessity of expanded personal concern for the distressed. Among the commercial and professional middle classes a variety of volunteer activists attempted a solution to this dilemma by professionalizing relations between giver and receiver, thus anticipating the methods of later Victorian “charity organization” by a full half-century.

This article is a study of the Owenite community established in Co. Clare, Ireland from November 1831 to November 1833. It examines the role of economic crisis in Ireland in stimulating interest in Owenite solutions. It analyses the differing motivations of the various actors (landowner, Owenite reformer, the peasantry) in joining the venture. It examines the sources of the community's stability – economic, sociological, and cultural. It argues that the community was destroyed by the contradictory roles of its founder, Vandeleur, who was both owner and President. In the process a detailed description of the community is provided, covering matters such as institutional arrangements, the division of labour, wages and benefits, gender relationships, and religion.

This article reviews the existing literature on the rise of the New Unionism and suggests some revisions of the nature of the phenomenon based on recent research. One finding is that as institutions the unions were not militant but from their inception favoured a moderate stance regarding relations with employers. The causes of the New Unionism and the strike wave of 1889–1890 are analysed within a framework of neoclassical economics and the major operator in the situation is identified as the dwindling supply of rural labour which increased the value and bargaining power of the unskilled toward the end of the nineteenth century.

The article takes shipbuilding as a case study in the development of collective bargaining in Britain during the period 1889–1910. During the period shipbuilding employers established an effective national organisation and were successful in drawing the unions into an industry-wide disputes procedure. These developments occurred notwithstanding marked differences in outlook and interest as between the two main centres of activity in the industry, the Clyde and the northeast coast. The more militant posture of the Clyde employers towards the unions is examined in relation to a number of key issues – the apprentice and machine questions, managerial prerogative, wage control. In interpreting the general nature of the transition that occurred in the industry's labour relations, the article questions the view that the move to national bargaining was associated with a general commitment to the joint regulation of employment rules. It further suggests that the general level of employer acceptance of trade unionism may have been less than is sometimes assumed. These conclusions may well have a significance beyond the case in question.

The debate over the labour bureaucracy has changed considerably since Robert Michels first argued that oligarchy was inevitable whenever humans organized. Recent work has tended to play down the notion of the labour bureaucracy as a body distinct from, and often in opposition to, the rank and file. Indeed, in the pages of this journal, Jonathan Zeitlin has maintained that “no clear line can be drawn between trade union officials and the ‘rank and file’”. Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion Zeitlin has urged that the “‘rank and filist’ paradigm is fundamentally unsatisfactory and should be abandoned rather than further refined”. Though others would not push the revisionist argument this far, the general tendency has been to agree that the earlier generalizations were over-blown and that it is difficult to distinguish between bureaucrats and members. Many of Zeitlin's earlier opponents now appear to be nearly indistinguishable from him, and few argue that the interests of the labour leadership differ in any important degree from those of the rank and file. I believe, however, that the reports of the demise of the labour bureaucrat have been somewhat exaggerated. This paper will argue that though the argument needs to be re-formulated, the paradigm of the labour bureaucracy remains a useful one. Such a reformulation must shift the focus from differences of ideology separating the leaders from the members and instead must turn to an analysis of the power relationship between the two. This paper will trace the recent twists and turns in the debate and will suggest ways in which it is possible to view the labour bureaucracy as a distinct layer of the union movement.

This paper investigates social differences in mortality on the basis of information provided by the registers of two Berlin parishes. The life expectancy of the lower classes was half as long again as that of the upper classes. This gap is smaller than that documented by Perrenoud for Geneva in the seventeenth century, but larger than that documented for contemporary small towns and medium-size cities.

Particularly infants and small children were the victims of “social inequality before death”, adults were only marginally affected. Nor did the major epidemics and diseases contribute much to this inequality. Although neither the use of animal milk for feeding nor leaving children with wetnurses in the country were common in Berlin at this time, conditions in this early-industrial city contributed to extremely high levels of infant mortality for specific sections of the population.

Just over ten years ago the future of labour history in Britain seemed assured. A self-confident, burgeoning field, it lay at the centre of the most innovative contributions to British historiography in the post-war era, and could claim as its own some of the most impressive historians of the time. Since the founding of the Society for the Study of Labour History in 1960, the field had moved from the periphery of historical concerns to occupy a central position in the spectrum of history writing.