A focus on politically uncommitted working-class women alters the traditional historiographical emphasis on collective militancy in the Spanish Revolution. A large number of females acted ambivalently towards the cause, and revolutionaries were forced to confront women's individualism. In the search for the collective identities of class and gender, this individualism has been ignored. Instead of neglecting or condemning the personal, historians should try to understand how an exploration of the varieties of subversive individualism – resistance to workplace discipline, opportunism, and petty fraud – can expand the boundaries of social history and help to contribute to a theory of the state.

The first part of this paper establishes the outlines of social policy in the course of the nineteenth century using Great Britain, Germany and France as examples, with particular emphasis on the differences arising from the varying political cultures of these countries. In the second part the paper attempts to establish comparisons for a generalized framework, also covering developments into the twentieth century. ‘Social policy’ in this instance means all state measures to safeguard the physical and social existence of employed workers on the basis of a criterion of fairness which is derived from their citizenship, it is political in other words. Safety ar work is as much a part of this as protection during illness, old age or unemployment. This study as a whole sets out to achieve some standardizations which will be useful in the analysis of the history of social policy and may also be helpful in the discussion of current socio-political problems.

In this paper we explore the hypothesis that monthly variation in white mob violence against blacks in the American South was affected by seasonal variation in the demand for labor in southern agriculture. Using monthly data on black lynchings that occurred between 1882 and 1930 we find that mob violence was more frequent during times of stronger labor demand than during slack periods. While the manifest function of lynchings might well have been to rid the white community of offending blacks who violated the moral order, we suggest that the latent function was to tighten the reins of control over the black population, especially during times when whites most needed black labor to work fields of cotton or tobacco.

This paper investigates the history of the labour process in New Zealand's state-owned railway workshops and questions the idea that large-scale industry inevitably destroyed whatever agency skilled workers had enjoyed. It also shows that relations of production vary with the political and cultural contexts. Craft control of the labour process survived in New Zealand's state-owned railway workshops and the union played only a minor role. Jop control was more important in achieving bureaucratic instead of autocratic control over such matters as hiring and firing; the retention of apprentice-based crafts; the institutionalization of seniority; and in resisting both de-skilling and the “premium bonus”. The strength and vitality of shop culture, based on craft control of the labour process, also survived and modified the Government's vigorous attempt to introduce “scientific management”. In brief the article concludes that productive processes do not inevitably determine social relations of production, that capitalism has been neither homogeneous nor uniform, and that mechanization never inevitably results in de-skilling.

This article examines the ways in which unionization impacted upon race relations in Chicago's meatpacking industry. It focuses upon a period when a dynamic working-class movement sought to overcome barriers imposed by a hierarchical job structure and reinforced by ethnic and racial divisions. The movement drew its strength from several sources. The support of the Chicago Federation of Labor threw the resources of a powerful local movement behind the campaign and encouraged the emergence of new, inclusive, forms of organization. The existence of shop-floor organizations further augmented the movement's power. Finally, the intervention of the government, in the form of binding arbitration, led to dramatic improvements in wages and conditions which helped the movement consolidate its position. Although these gains were undone and the movement destroyed, the union campaign transformed racial and class experiences in the stockyards.

This paper focuses on the theme of religious conflict within the working class in inter-war Scotland. It pays particular attention to the Protestant working class of the industrial lowlands and to the role of the exclusively Protestant secret society of Irish origin, the Orange Order. It attempts to explain why the inter-war period saw an upsurge in membership of sectarian organisations like the Orange Order and their activities; and at the same time was notable for a broadening of Labour Party support among the working class which transcended religious divisions. It argues that sectarian and class loyalties often went together and in some ways reinforced each other. The Orange Order leadership's Conservative politics is stressed but it is contended that the Order's appeal to the working class was to a large extent based on issues such as education and mixed marriages and perceived Irish Catholic immigration, issues which did not break down neatly into party political terms. It is argued that the Orange Order's social role was of great significance in this period of economic austerity and mass unemployment.

Between 1924 and 1961 elite Africans in Southern Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe) waged a protracted political struggle for the right legally to drink “European” liquor, which had been banned to colonized Africans under the Brussels Treaty of 1890. Refusing to be lumped with the black masses and basing their claim on the notion that there should be “equal rights for all civilized men”, elite Africans argued that they had attained a cultural level comparable to that of the dominant European settlers and should therefore be exempt from the liquor ban. This struggle, which ended successfully in 1961, also highlights other important themes in the history of the emergent African elite in Southern Rhodesia, most notably its political tactics and consciousness. The quest for European liquor helped to hone political skills as well, as a number of individuals who participated in it later became important African nationalist leaders.

A number of Bronterre O'Brien's disciples were the leading lights of London clubs that provided the silent majority to the Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.). Even after the O'Brienites came to accept the need for collective ownership of the means of production, their political strategy remained that of O'Brien. An understanding of the role played by the O'Brienites helps to explain various problems in the history of the S.D.F. such as why most members remained with Hyndman rather than follow Morris into the Socialist League and why the S.D.F. adopted an ambiguous attitude to trade unions and to palliatives.

The article deals with “racial” aspects of the labour market and labour relations in South Africa's building industry, focussing largely, though not exclusively, on skilled building workers on the Witwatersrand (Southern Transvaal). Different trade-union strategies are examined, as pursued by building trade unions in the Transvaal as well as the Eastern Cape and Natal, in order to add a comparative dimension. In the latter areas, shortly after World War I, a white-exclusionist organizing policy was replaced in some urban centres by a pragmatic strategy of incorporating “coloured” artisans (Africans and Indians continued to be excluded). In the Transvaal, on the other hand, the relatively strong position of white building workers and a deeply-ingrained racism ensured the maintenance of racially-exclusive trade unionism in the building industry.