New labor history is a branch of

labor history Labor history is a sub-discipline of social history which specializes on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other factors besides class ...

which focuses on the experiences of workers, women, and minorities in the study of history. It is heavily influenced by

social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...

. Before the 1960s, most labor historians around the world focused on the history of

labor unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

. In the United States, for example, labor economists at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

dominated the academic discipline of labor history. Their research focused on the development of markets, trade unions, and political philosophies. In the 1950s, British and other European historians developed the field of social history to correct the

structuralist Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns tha ...

imbalances they perceived in the study of history. Social historians not only sought to enlarge the study of history but to refocus it on the experiences of common people rather than institutions or elites. British social historians such as E. P. Thompson, in particular, had a significant impact on American labor historians. Labor scholars to the right and left of the American political spectrum found it difficult to explain the rise of labor in the late 19th century, and social history offered at least a new approach to solving the riddle. Social history also took root at the same time that American organized labor began to decline. For left-leaning labor scholars, social history suggested a new way to revitalize the American labor movement by focusing attention away from conservative leaders and institutions, as well as a means for academics to engage with workers themselves. For some, the new labor history moved the discipline of labor history away from the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

theoretical perspective that saw trade union movements in terms of elites, classes, and institutions. European and American critics of the "new labor history" charge that historians now neglect institutions and elites. They argue that labor leaders and unions shape workers' goals and values as much as reflect them. They also point out that the "new labor history" has a tendency to ignore larger cultural trends and movements and technological developments which operate on a more systemic level than the individual. Especially in the United States, many young labor historians are attempting a new synthesis of the "old" and "new" labor histories.

Examples of "new labor history" scholars

* David Brody *

Melvyn Dubofsky Melvyn Dubofsky (born October 25, 1934) is professor emeritus of history and sociology, and a well-known labor historian. He is Bartle Distinguished Professor of History and Sociology at the Binghamton University. Dubofsky helped advance the fi ...

* Herbert Gutman * Nelson Lichtenstein * David Montgomery * E. P. Thompson

Examples of "old" labor history scholars

* Neil W. Chamberlain *

John R. Commons John Rogers Commons (October 13, 1862 – May 11, 1945) was an American institutional economist, Georgist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early years John R. Commons was born in Hollansburg, Ohio o ...

John Thomas Dunlop John Thomas Dunlop (July 5, 1914October 2, 2003) was an American administrator, labor economist, and educator. Dunlop was the United States Secretary of Labor between 1975 and 1976 under President Gerald Ford. He was Director of the United Stat ...

Examples of "new labor history" scholars

Examples of "old" labor history scholars

References

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