Author's note: Preliminary research for this article was carried out at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy), on a Fernand Braudel fellowship awarded in 2010. An early version was presented at the international conference “Femmes et genre en contexte colonial,” held at Sciences Po in Paris in January 2012. I thank the convenors Pascale Barthélémy, Anne Hugon, and Christelle Taraud. I also thank the IJMES anonymous referees for useful comments on the first draft.

¹ Huber, Valeska, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Bonin, Hubert, History of the Suez Canal Company, 1858–2008: Between Controversy and Utility (Geneva: Droz, 2010)Google Scholar. This is an updated edition of his Suez: du canal à la finance, 1858–1987 (Paris: Economica, 1987).

³ Piquet, Caroline, La Compagnie du canal de Suez. Une concession française en Egypte (1888–1956) (Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris Sorbonne, 2008)Google Scholar; idem, Histoire du Canal de Suez (Paris: Perrin, 2009).

⁴ Owen, Roger and Pamuk, Sevket, A History of Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 33Google Scholar.

⁵ Gorman, Anthony, Historians, State and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation (New York: Routledge, 2003), 178Google Scholar.

⁶ For methodological overviews of the relationship between local and global history, with specific reference to labor history, see Lucassen, Jan, ed., Global Labour History: A State of the Art (New York: Peter Lang, 2008)Google Scholar; and Manning, Patrick, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ On the construction of the canal, see Montel, Nathalie, Le chantier du canal de Suez (1859–1869). Une histoire des pratiques techniques (Paris: Presses de l’École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1998)Google Scholar; and Karabell, Zachary, Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal (New York: Vintage, 2003)Google Scholar.

⁸ Foreign communities in Egypt are the subject of a large bibliography. Classic general studies include Deeb, Marius, “The Socioeconomic Role of the Local Foreign Minorities in Modern Egypt, 1805–1961,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (1978): 11–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Beinin, Joel, “Society and Economy, 1923–1952,” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, ed. Daly, M.W. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 2:309–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the settlement in the canal zone of Egyptian and Middle Eastern Jews who were attracted by hiring opportunities at the Suez Company, see Krämer, Gudrun, The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–1952 (London: Tauris, 1989)Google Scholar.

⁹ The vast intra-Mediterranean movement of workers in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries has attracted new interest in the historiography of colonial interactions and entanglements between the two shores of the Mediterranean. See Borutta, Manuel and Gekas, Sakis, “A Colonial Sea: The Mediterranean, 1798–1956”; and Sakis Gekas, “Colonial Migrants and the Making of a British Mediterranean,” European Review of History-Revue européenne d'histoire 19 (2012): 1–13, 75–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Huber, Valeska, “Connecting Colonial Seas: The ‘International Colonisation’ of Port Said and the Suez Canal during and after the First World War,” European Review of History-Revue européenne d'histoire 19 (2012): 141–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Siegfried, André, Suez Panama et le routes maritimes mondiales (Paris: Armand Colin, 1945), 70Google Scholar.

¹² Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 255. On the Greek presence in Egypt, see Karanasou, Floresca, “The Greeks in Egypt: From Mohammed Ali to Nasser, 1805–1961,” in The Greek Diaspora in the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard Clogg (London: Macmillan, 1999)Google Scholar.

¹³ Among the vast bibliography on Italian communities in Egypt, see Petricioli, Marta, Oltre il mito. L'Egitto degli italiani, 1917–1947 (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2007)Google Scholar; Amicucci, Davide, “La comunità italiana in Egitto attraverso i censimenti dal 1882 al 1947,” in Tradizione e modernizzazione in Egitto:1798–1998, ed. Branca, Paolo (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2000), 81–94Google Scholar; and Rossi, Ettore, “Gli Italiani d'Egitto,” in Egitto moderno, ed. Sammarco, Angeloet al. (Rome: Roma Edizioni, 1939), 79–88Google Scholar. For a general overview on Italy and the canal, see Bono, Salvatore, “Il Canale di Suez e l'Italia,” Mediterranea 3 (2006): 411–22Google Scholar. On Italian workers in the Suez Canal zone, see Cresti, Federico, “Comunità proletarie italiane nell'Africa mediterranea tra XIX secolo e periodo fascista,” Mediterranea 5 (2008): 189–214Google Scholar.

¹⁴ This was a “racial” model of work segregation very similar to that of the American oil fields in the Middle East studied by Vitalis, Robert, in America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (London: Verso, 2009)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Stoler, Ann Laura, “Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31 (1989): 134–61, esp. 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Huber, “Connecting Colonial Seas.”

¹⁸ For recent reviews of this discussion, see Hanley, Will, “Grieving Cosmopolitanism in Middle East Studies,” History Compass 6 (2008): 1346–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who also suggests that histories of Middle East cosmopolitanism should rely less on literary sources and more on administrative, economic, and legal records. See also Driessen, Henk, “Mediterranean Port Cities: Cosmopolitanism Reconsidered,” History and Anthropology 16 (2005): 129–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura, “Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997), 3, 10–11, 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 26.

²¹ Kessler-Harris, Alice, “Reframing the History of Women's Wage Labor: Challenges of a Global Perspective,” in Gendering Labor History (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 273Google Scholar.

²² Kessler-Harris, Alice, “Gender and Work: Possibilities for a Global, Historical Overview,” in Women's History in Global Perspective, ed. Smith, Bonnie (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2004–2005), 1:145–94, esp. 147Google Scholar.

²³ Levine, Philippa, “Introduction: Why Gender and Empire?,” in Gender and Empire, ed. Levine, Philippa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1, 3Google Scholar; Barthélémy, Pascale, Capdevila, Luc, and Zancarini-Fournel, Michelle, “Femmes, genre et colonisations,” Clio 33 (2011): 7–22Google Scholar.

²⁴ Allman, Jean and Burton, Antoinette, “Destination Globalization? Women, Gender and Comparative Colonial Histories in the New Millennium,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4, no. 1 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Clancy-Smith, Julia, “Twentieth-Century Historians and Historiography of the Middle East: Women, Gender, and Empire,” in Middle East Historiographies: Narrating the Twentieth Century, ed. Gershoni, Israel, Singer, Amy, and Erdem, Y. Hakan (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 2006), 70–100Google Scholar.

²⁶ Booth, Marilyn, “New Directions in Middle East Women's and Gender History,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 4, no. 1 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ The “neglect of non-industrial and non-revolutionary workers” is precisely one of the “drawbacks” of global labor historiography, as underlined by Jan Lucassen, “Writing Global Labour History, c. 1800–1940: A Historiography of Concepts, Periods and Geographical Scope,” in Lucassen, Global Labour History, 88; and Kocka, Jürgen, “How Can One Make Labour History Interesting Again?,” European Review 9 (2001): 201–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ See Geoffrey D. Schad's review of Watenpaugh, Keith D, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011): 556–58.

²⁹ The firman, the statute of the company, and additional official documents are published in Charles-Roux, Jules, L'isthme et le canal de Suez: Historique—Etat actuel (Paris: Hachette, 1901)Google Scholar; and in English in Archives of Empire, vol. 1, From the East India Company to the Suez Canal, ed. Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003).

³⁰ Hallberg, Charles W., The Suez Canal: Its History and Diplomatic Importance (New York: Columbia University Press, reprint New York: Octagon Books, 1974), 405–406Google Scholar; Landes, David, Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), chap. 7Google Scholar; Crabitès, Pierre, The Spoliation of Suez (London: Routledge, 1940)Google Scholar.

³¹ Issa, Hossam M., Capitalisme et sociétés anonymes en Egypte (Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Pichon et Durand-Auzias, 1970)Google Scholar; Saul, Samir, La France et l'Egypte de 1882 à 1914. Intérêts économiques et implications politiques (Paris: Comité pour l'Histoire économique et financière de la France, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² The Convention of 1888 was signed by Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. On the convention as part of “the Egyptian question,” which was in turn “part of the Mediterranean question” of the time, see Shonfield, Hugh J., The Suez Canal (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939)Google Scholar; and idem, The Suez Canal in Peace and War, 1869–1969 (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1969).

³³ Koskenniemi, Martti, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Farnie, Douglas Anthony, East and West of Suez: The Suez Canal in History, 1854–1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969)Google Scholar.

³⁵ On this controversy, classic readings are Boutros-Ghali, Boutros and Chala, Youssef, Le Canal de Suez, 1854–1957 (Alexandria: Société Egyptienne de Droit International, 1958)Google Scholar; and Heykal, Mohammed Hassaneyn, L'Affaire de Suez, Un regard égyptien (Paris: Ramsay, 1987)Google Scholar. On the French perspective, see Pinto, Roger, “L'affaire de Suez. Problèmes juridiques,” Annuaire français de droit international 2 (1956): 20–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 517.

³⁷ Ibid., 90, 509. On the 1909–10 negotiations see also Hallberg, The Suez Canal, 405–406.

³⁸ “The composition of the workforce in the canal zone is peculiar, as it is characterized by a stratification of ethnic and social groups.” Siegfried, Suez Panama, 70.

³⁹ The presidents of the company were: Ferdinand de Lesseps (1858–94); Jules Guichard (1894–96); Auguste Louis Albéric, prince d'Arenberg (1896–1913); Charles Jonnard (1913–27); Louis, Marquis de Vogüé (1927–48); and François Charles-Roux (1948–56).

⁴⁰ The CdA included representatives of French aristocratic families and business and financial interests, British armed forces and shipping companies, and other European commercial interests. On the eve of World War I, it included nineteen French, ten British, one German, and one Dutch member. For extensive accounts on the company structure, see Bonin, History of the Suez Canal Company; and Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez.

⁴¹ For the period covered here, the AS position was held by Comte Charles de Sérionne (1894–1929); Baron Louis de Benoist (1929–48); and Comte Jean Philippe de Grailly (1948–56).

⁴² On the “triple” nature of the AS, who was chief of the Services d'Egypte, chief of the Administrative Service, and liaison officer with the Paris headquarters, see Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 72–73, 237.

⁴³ Ibid., 228.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 231–32.

⁴⁵ On the role of the company in the “urban governance” of the isthmus cities, see Reimer, Michael, “Urban Government and Administration in Egypt, 1805–1914,” Die Welt des Islams 39 (1999): 289–318CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Siegfried, Suez Panama, 76–77; Parfond, Paul, Pilotes de Suez (Paris: Editions France Empire, 1957)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Siegfried, Suez Panama, 76.

⁴⁸ Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 229.

⁴⁹ Reading through the company's records, the only exceptions to this rule seem to have been the company hospitals, where young Egyptian doctors and nurses were trained, as these personnel were relatively external to the actual organization of the company.

⁵⁰ Piquet, Caroline, “Les employés de la Compagnie du Canal de Suez de 1869 à 1956: culture du travail et douceur de vie de l'Egypte,” in Des Français Outre Mer, ed. Mohamed-Gaillard, Sarah and Navarrete, Maria Nomo (Paris: PUPS, Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005), 85–97Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Services d'Egypte, Employés surnuméraires et temporaires, au 31 decembre 1924; Services d'Egypte, Employés surnuméraires et temporaires, du 1er Janvier 1925 au 31 decembre 1928, Archives historiques de la Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez (hereafter AHCUCMS), Archives du Monde du Travail, Roubaix, 2000 038 319.

⁵² On the Egyptian political context after World War I, see Selma Botman, “The Liberal Age, 1923–1952,” in Daly, The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 2, chap. 12.

⁵³ For a fine and detailed analysis of nationality laws of the 1920s and their effects on foreign identities in Egypt, see Abécassis, Frédéric and Gall-Kazazian, Anne Le, “L'identité au miroir du droit. Le statut des personnes en Égypte (fin xix^e - milieu xx^e siècle),” Égypte/Monde arabe 11 (1992): 11–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ On the effects of nationality laws on foreign minorities, which have been studied mainly in relation to Egyptian Jewry but which also affected other non-Muslim, mutamaṣṣir communities, see, among many others, Shamir, Shimon, “The Evolution of the Egyptian Nationality Laws and Their Application to the Jews in the Monarchy Period,” in The Jews of Egypt: A Mediterranean Society in Modern Times, ed. Shamir, Shimon (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Beinin, Joel, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998)Google Scholar; and Deeb, The Socioeconomic Role of the Local Foreign Minorities, 21–22.

⁵⁵ Abécassis and Le Gall-Kazazian, “L'identité au miroir du droit,” 34.

⁵⁶ The relationship between the Egyptian government and private business has been the subject of a long historiographical debate. See Tignor, Robert L., State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Davis, Eric, Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920–1941 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a review of the debate, see Vitalis, Robert, “The End of Third Worldism in Egyptian Studies,” Arab Studies Journal 4 (1996): 13–32Google Scholar. For recent research and an updated methodological discussion on this subject, see Foda, Omar D., “The Pyramid and the Crown: The Egyptian Beer Industry from 1897 to 1963,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46 (2014): 139–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Hansen, Bent, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: Egypt and Turkey (New York and Oxford: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 1991), 103Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ The category of employé included “any person performing an administrative or technical task or having the position of clerk or accountant and receiving a salary from the company.” Issa, Capitalisme et sociétés anonymes, 181.

⁵⁹ Farag, Iman, “‘Un emploi pour un diplôme’. L'usure d'un accord tacite (1930–1990),” Égypte/Monde arabe 4–5 (2001): 173–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ Baron, Beth, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Russell, Mona L., Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Al-Ali, Nadje, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women's Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Botman, Selma, Engendering Citizenship in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Sorbera, Lucia, “Gli esordi del femminismo egiziano. Costruzione e superamento di uno spazio nazionale femminile,” Genesis 6 (2007): 115–36Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Badran, Margot, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 174Google Scholar; Pollard, Lisa, Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing and Liberating Egypt (1805/1923) (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶¹ On the work of Egyptian women between the wars, see Tucker, Judith E., “Women in the Middle East and North Africa: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Women in the Middle East and North Africa: Restoring Women to History, ed. Nashat, Guity and Tucker, Judith E. (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. See also, for references to middle-class education and work, Beck, Lois and Keddie, Nikki, eds., Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶² This connection is highlighted also by Roussillon, Alain, “Réforme sociale et politique en Égypte au tournant des années 1940,” Égypte/Monde arabe 18–19 (1994)Google Scholar, http://ema.revues.org/105.

⁶³ The agreement provided for the end of British occupation and redefined the presence of British troops in the Suez Canal, although its actual implementation would be postponed until after the war, when a new agreement was signed. Wm. Louis, Roger, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 229–30Google Scholar. For a recent general assessment of the role of the canal as a long-term persistent strategic priority of British presence in the Middle East, see Darwin, John, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁴ Compagnie universelle du Canal maritime de Suez (hereafter CUCMS), Assemblée générale des actionnaires, Rapport presenté au nom du Conseil d'Administration (hereafter CdA), 1936 and 1937.

⁶⁵ Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 132.

⁶⁶ CUCMS, CdA 1938. The first Egyptian to enter the board was Sabri Pasha, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs and brother of the queen mother; the second, the following year, was Ismaʿil Sidqi Pasha, the former prime minister and former finance minister.

⁶⁷ Pizzo, Paola, L'Egitto agli Egiziani! Cristiani, musulmani e idea nazionale (1882–1936) (Turin: Zamorani, 2002)Google Scholar; Beinin, Joel and Lockman, Zachary, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Tignor, Robert L., Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire: State and Business in Decolonizing Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, 1945–1963 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Vitalis, Robert, When Capitalists Collide: Business Conflict and the End of Empire in Egypt (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 13.

⁷⁰ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome Second, Mesures nées de la guerre, Création d'un Bureau de personnel, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷¹ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome Premier, Evolution des effectifs depuis Juin 1940, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷² Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 145.

⁷³ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome Premier, Evolution des effectifs du personnel ouvrier de la Compagnie, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷⁴ CUCMS, CdA 1945.

⁷⁵ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome Premier, Nominations et augmentations en 1942, Caractère fictif de ces dernières; Conférence des Chefs de service, 10 December 1943, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷⁶ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome second, Mesures nées de la guerre, Conditions de solde des agents auxiliaires, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷⁷ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome second, Mesures nées de la guerre, Personnel auxiliaire, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷⁸ Guerre 1939, Questions de Personnel, Tome second, Mesures nées de la guerre, Mesure spéciale pour le personnel auxiliaire féminin: durée et conditions de l'absence motivée par les couches, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 315.

⁷⁹ It was S. Pinkney Tuck, ex-chargé d'affaires in Vichy France and U.S. ambassador to Egypt between 1946 and 1948. On postwar nominations, see Piquet, La Compagnie du canal de Suez, 174–75; and Georges-Picot, Jacques, Souvenirs d'une longue carrière. De la rue de Rivoli à la Compagnie de Suez, 1920–1971, ed. Carré de Malberg, Nathalie and Bonin, Hubert (Paris: Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France, 1993)Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ On this law, see Beinin, Joel, The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (Washington, D.C.: Solidarity Center, 2010), 8Google Scholar; on the effects of the war on Egyptian trade unions and on workers’ protests in general, see Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile.

⁸¹ CUCMS, CdA 1945.

⁸² Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, 103.

⁸³ CUCMS, CdA 1949.

⁸⁴ Issa, Capitalisme et sociétés anonymes en Egypte, 203.

⁸⁵ At the moment of nationalization in 1956, the board was composed of sixteen French, nine British, five Egyptian, one American, and one Dutch administrator.

⁸⁶ CUCMS, CdA 1949.

⁸⁷ “Once more Egypt bowed before the Suez Company . . . once again the foreign control turned into political power.” Issa, Capitalisme et sociétés anonymes en Egypte, 214.

⁸⁸ CUCMS, CdA 1949.

⁸⁹ Piquet, La Compagnie du canale de Suez, 305–307.

⁹⁰ Lettre du Directeur du Personnel au Directeur général, Commis auxiliares. Contrat de travail 1946, 14 November 1945, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/1.

⁹¹ Création du Cadre des DAP (Dames auxiliaires permanentes), Décision 85951 du 6 Mai 1946, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/1.

⁹² Among many others, see Anderson, Gregory, ed., The White Blouse Revolution: Female Office Workers since 1870 (New York: St. Martin's, 1988)Google Scholar; Cohn, Samuel, The Process of Occupational Sex-typing: The Feminization of Clerical Labor in Great Britain, 1870–1936 (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Crompton, Rosemary and Jones, Gareth, White-Collar Proletariat: Deskilling and Gender in Clerical Work (London: Macmillan, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹³ Services d'Egypte, Etat des dames auxiliaires du cadre permanent au 1^er avril 1950, AHCUCMS, 200038 316.

⁹⁴ Service du Personnel, Dames auxiliaires de bureau, “Lettre du Directeur général adjoint Jacques Georges-Picot à l'Agent supérieur,” 23 September 1948, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/2.

⁹⁵ Service du Personnel, Dames auxiliaires de bureau, “Lettre du Directeur général adjoint Jacques Georges-Picot à l'Agent supérieur,” 23 September 1948, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/2.

⁹⁶ Service du Personnel, Dames auxiliaires de bureau, “Lettre du Chef de Service administratif au Directeur Général,” Mutations Engagements, 30 January 1950, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/2.

⁹⁷ “Note jointe à la Lettre n 654 du 4 août 1950 de M. le Chef du service administratif à M. le Directeur général,” 29 September 1950, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 316.

⁹⁸ Service du Personnel, Dames auxiliaires, Situation des D.A. devant le gouvermement égyptien, “Lettre du Directeur général au Chef du service administratif,” Personnel auxiliaire féminin, 29 November 1950, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 316.

⁹⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰⁰ Piquet, “Les employés de la Compagnie du Canal de Suez,” 93.

¹⁰¹ A divorced French woman had one child; a Greek was married to a Transit worker and had a child; a Yugoslav widow of a worker had a child.

¹⁰² Création du Cadre des DAP (Dames auxiliaires permanentes), Décision 85951 du 6 Mai 1946, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 316.

¹⁰³ “Personnel-Engagement-Procédure Administrative à suivre depuis le dépôt de la candidature jusqu'au classement. Candidats egyptiens à un poste d'employé,” 31 December 1951, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 317/2.

¹⁰⁴ “Lettre du Chef du Personnel au Chef de Service Administratif,” Auxiliares féminines—Améloration de leur position administrative, 16 December 1953, AHCUCMS, 2000 038 318.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁷ AHCUCMS, 200038 316.

¹⁰⁸ A recent work touching on these themes is Reynolds, Nancy Y., “Entangled Communities: Interethnic Relationships among Urban Salesclerks and Domestic Workers in Egypt, 1927–1961,” European Review of History-Revue européenne d'histoire 19 (2012): 113–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ Le Canal, no. 19, August 1955.

¹¹⁰ Fawaz, Leila Tarazi and Bayly, C.A., “The Connected World of Empires,” in Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, ed. Fawaz and Bayly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; with particular reference to Suez, see Huber, Channelling Mobilities; and idem, “Connecting Colonial Seas.”

¹¹¹ Engerman, David C. and Unger, Corinna N., “Towards a Global History of Modernization,” Diplomatic History 33 (2009): 375–85, esp. 377CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹² Boris, Eileen and Janssens, Angelique, eds., Complicating Categories: Gender, Class, Race, and Ethnicity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frager, Ruth, “Labour History and the Interlocking Hierarchies of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender,” International Review of Social History 44 (1999): 217–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scully, Pamela, “Race and Ethnicity in Women's and Gender History in Global Perspective,” in Women's History in Global Perspective, vol. 1, ed. Bonnie Smith (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2004–2005)Google Scholar.