The most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history is the transportation of ten million human beings out of the dark beauty of their mother continent into the new-found Eldorado of the West. They descended into Hell; and in the third century they arose from the dead, in the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen. It [post-Civil War Reconstruction in the U.S.] was a tragedy that beggared the Greek; it was an upheaval of humanity like the Reformation and the French Revolution. Yet we are blind and led by the blind. We discern in it no part of our labour movement [ … ]1

All disciplines and sub-disciplines are defined through a series of inclusions and exclusions. They are based on specific assumptions and conventions that delineate their appropriate objects and methods of study. Historians, like scholars in other fields, including the so-called “natural sciences”, do not simply record some objective reality that exists independently of their taken-for-granted ideas about the nature of that reality. Rather, their decisions as to which subjects and events will be objects of study and how they will be conceptualized are shaped both by widely accepted philosophical tenets and common-sense understandings of the nature of human society.

Labour historians have always shown an interest in working class men and women who participated in strikes, unions, and political parties. However, even when historians are receptive to the importance of family life behind public activism these scholars continue to use the “public sphere” as an approach for studying the family. This approach runs counter to historical logic because the daily life of those who join social movements and organizations involves far more than merely labour activism. To understand the true causes of collective resistance among workers, it is necessary to use the “private sphere” as an approach for studying labour protests as well. While this reverse perspective may not prove a panacea for all problems associated with analysing labour history, it will provide insight into the rather obscure motives of the working class for deciding whether or not to support the development of workers' movements. Furthermore, Jean H. Quataert wrote that examining working-class households makes it possible to keep “in focus at all times the lives of both men and women, young and old, and the variety of paid and unpaid work necessary to maintain the unit”.