New labor history is a branch of

labor history Labor history or labour history is a sub-discipline of social history which specialises on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other fac ...

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 the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

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

labor unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

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

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

dominated the academic discipline of labor history. Their research focused on the development of

markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

, trade unions, and political philosophies. In the 1950s, British and other European historians developed the field of social history to correct the structuralist 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 Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

theoretical perspective that saw trade union movements in terms of elites, classes, and institutions.See . 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 Herbert George Gutman (1928–1985) was an American professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he wrote on slavery and labor history. Early life and education Gutman was born in 1928 to Jewish immigran ...

Nelson Lichtenstein Nelson Lichtenstein (born November 15, 1944) is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. He is labor historian who has written also about 20t ...

* David Montgomery * E. P. Thompson

Examples of "old" labor history scholars

Neil W. Chamberlain Neil Cornelius Wolverton Chamberlain (May 18, 1915 – September 14, 2006) was an American economist who was the Armand G. Erpf Professor of Modern Corporations of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. Before that he was a profe ...

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 on ...

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 Sta ...

Selig Perlman Selig Perlman (December 9, 1888 – August 14, 1959) was an economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Background Perlman was born in Białystok in Congress Poland (then part of Russia) in 1888. His father, ...

Joseph Rayback Joseph G. Rayback (1914–1983) was a professor of history in the United States. Career He served in the United States Navy and earned a Ph.D. in American history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. For many years, he was a p ...

* Sumner Slichter *

Philip Taft Philip Taft (1902–1976) was an American labor historian whose research focused on the labor history of the United States and the American Federation of Labor. Early life Taft was born on March 22, 1902, in Syracuse, New York. His father di ...

References

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Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{refend Labor history Social history