Abstract
When the New Zealand Labour Party celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1966, Michael Connelly was the only living member of those who were elected to national office in 1916 when the party was founded. Continue reading
Abstract
The life of the master-painter and socialist activist Ernest Hugo Kunze can help to illuminate an internationalist tradition on the left wing of the Australian labour movement. Continue reading
Abstract
This paper concerns itself with the opportunities and potential dangers involved in the study of trans-national labour history and biography. Continue reading
Abstract
In the early 1890s Harry Atkinson, the subject of this paper, travelled to England and spent a year as foundation secretary of the Manchester and Salford Labour Church. In Manchester Atkinson worked closely with the Church’s founder John Trevor and experienced the colour and symbolism of protest and demonstration, and the ritual and rhetoric of Labour Church services. Continue reading
Abstract
This paper will outline the life of Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, who was the head of the Church of England worldwide from 1942-1944. Temple was an unusual archbishop, who had joined the Labour Party in Britain in 1918. While his parentage doubtless assisted to his rise within the church ranks, his ability was recognised despite his socialistic leanings. Continue reading
Abstract
Patrick Hodgens Hickey (1882-1930) was one of the key players in the ‘Red Fed’ period of New Zealand labour history, from 1907 to 1913. His life story had a broader geographical sweep that reveals much about transnational labour history. Continue reading
Frank Cain
Abstract
The ideas of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were introduced from Chicago to Australia via Sydney in 1907 by a group of immigrant, English-speaking, itinerant, Marxist, semi-skilled workers. They dismissed the existing Labor governments as time servers and the Great War as against the interests of the working class. This paper will present short biographies of five of these foreign-born activists and how they adapted their radical IWW ideology that had evolved from the class war in the early 20th century United States. Continue reading
Abstract
Whilst Irish people clearly were highly active in trade unions and labour organisations in the English-speaking world, there is disagreement as to the extent of their participation. The weakness in Ireland of organisations, such as Chartism, and the endemic sectarian conflict between a plethora of nationalist and loyalist organisations, has obscured the role of class in Irish identity formation. Continue reading
Framing the Unions: The Changing Images of Unionists on Screen
Abstract
In Australia in the 1950s, the Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit was the only film production group in the world that was funded by a trade union. The unit produced short films on subjects that other production units would never tackle, like the political background of protests from the union members’ viewpoint, and issues concerning workers’ rights. The filmmakers took a particular stylistic approach to the portrayal of workers, in a period when attempting to make public any labour culture was problematic.
Abstract
The written biographies and memoirs of activists and leaders have long been core components of labour history. But biography is not only a literary genre – it is also a type of audio-visual production. Continue reading
Abstract
This paper discusses the influences that led Annie Christie Massy, a North Queensland newspaper proprietor, to support the Labour Party at the first Federal election in 1901. Continue reading
Abstract
Shirley Andrews joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1945. During the Cold War years her Party membership had a negative impact on her life. Political interference by an anti-communist member of the Victorian Parliament meant she had to fight to retain a job to which she had been appointed. Continue reading
Abstract
The high hopes associated with the landmark Cattle Industry (Northern Territory) Award, 1966, which promised equal pay for indigenous workers soon soured. For many activists the decision was a Pyrrhic victory. This was especially true for Dexter Daniels, the North Australian Workers’ Union organiser who, in the lead up to the case, had visited the cattle stations in the Northern Territory. Continue reading
Abstract
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have secured a place in Australian folklore as one of the most notable examples of class-conscious rebellion. For a time in the 1910s the State viewed them as public enemy number one, an insidious menace responsible for inciting the class conflict in Australia. Continue reading
Catherine Bishop
Abstract
Colonial women have been regarded as domesticated creatures, kept within the private sphere and occupied with housework and child-rearing. This image has pervaded the historiography as well as popular culture. Continue reading
Abstract
Francis MacNamara, known among his fellow prisoners as “Frank the Poet”, was transported in 1832 to Botany Bay. Most of what we know about him, including his poetical work, comes from Frank the Poet (1979) written by folklorists John Meredith and Rex Whalan. Continue reading
Abstract
Raphael Samuel constitutes a fantastic candidate for an intellectual biography. He had a working life of endless activity, covering a vast array of different interests. He was first and foremost a socialist and an historian, but he was also a tireless educator, energetic facilitator, prolific editor, enthusiastic writer, and shrewd social critic. Continue reading
Andrew Moore, Yasmin Rittau, John Shields
Abstract
Despite the solid – if occasionally polemical – record of research and publication in the biographical genre by Australian labour historians over the past sixty years, there are hundreds if not thousands of labour activists whose lives have remained un- or under-documented; lost, for all intents and purposes, to both the established scholar and the enthusiastic student. The Biographical Register of the Australian Labour Movement 1788-1975 represents an attempt to address these lacunae by publishing brief (300-700 word) biographical entries on some 2,000 activists about whom we have been able to discover at least a fragment of information and whom we consider to have made a significant but hitherto un- or under-recorded contribution to the movement’s history at the national, State, regional and/or local scale at some point down to the mid-1970s. Continue reading
Bobbie Oliver
Abstract
This paper surveys the current state of labour history teaching and research in Western Australia. It argues that, while a form of labour history remains viable in labour relations, management or productivity research, it is disappearing as an undergraduate subject in University History Departments.
Abstract
Bruce Shields’ recent memoir of the ASSLH’s early years, differing from the late, lamented Eric Fry’s earlier (1999) account, is a timely reminder of the vibrant intellectual culture, and the passions imbedded in it, that gave birth to our Society. Continue reading