The second half of the 'long nineteenth century' witnessed a dramatic increase of strikes all over Europe, which was not confined within national boundaries. Historical strike research has mainly analyzed strike-related transnationalism by doing comparative studies and examining international strike waves. This article offers a second approach towards a transnational history of striking: the analysis of strike-related transnational entanglements. By the example of strikes in Switzerland, it focuses on three aspects and asks about their geographical dimensions, their impact on the outcome of local strikes as well as the impact of these strikes on the further transnationalization of industrial relations: strike-induced migration; the transnational collection of donations for strikers; and border-crossing organizational cooperation both of trade unions and employers. The catchment area of these transnational entanglements covered large parts of Europe. Whilst transnational donations, being important both financially and symbolically, experienced their heyday between the 1860s and the 1890s, several forms of migration, including the border-crossing recruitment of strike-breakers and the deportation of foreign strikers, took place over the whole period considered and were in some cases crucial for the outcome of strikes. These forms of migration were especially important in causing the establishment of transnational mechanisms of cooperation between both trade unions and employers organizations between the 1890s and 1914. On balance, the Swiss case uncovers a potentially very productive field of analysis for renewed historical strike research, which fits perfectly well into a transnational labour history inspired by the philosophy of 'histoire croisée'.

The article analyses the work of the Federation internationale de la Libre Pensee, an organization that was founded in 1880 as a transnational actor in Europe's 'culture wars'. With a secretariat based in Brussels, the federation organized twenty-five international congresses in different cities and countries between 1880 and 1938, bringing together representatives of secularist groups as well as political activists and scientists through its events. The federation hence played a role in creating transnational meeting spaces — yet it could also serve as a campaigning tool, reflected by its role in the international solidarity campaign for the Catalan educator and anarchist Francisco Ferrer. Significantly, the federation provided a forum for both socialists and liberals, who were unified in identifying the role of organized religion (in particular the Catholic church) as a matter of transnational concern. By tracing the main features of this 'Freethinkers' International' and its constituency, the article q...

The end of the nineteenth century marks the beginnings of the popular music industry. Although the symbolic figures of this period are undoubtedly the decadent music-hall stars, the situation for the majority of musicians was all but glamorous. As their working conditions ineluctably deteriorated from the 1870s onwards, many started to consider the possible benefits of unionization. In this context, modest instrumentalists often chose to leave their country of origin in search of better opportunities abroad, while music-hall singers were touring the world in the hope of increasing their audience. This international professional mobility led to numerous artistic exchanges. It also facilitated militant transfers between the newly formed musicians' unions. This article examines the progress of the music industry and its impact on the conditions of performing musicians in Britain, France, and the United States from the 1870s to the 1920s. Keeping in mind the wider evolution of the traditional labour movement,...

Louise Jermy's autobiography, Memories of a Working Woman (1934), has been described as 'a record of ill-luck, ill-health, poverty and disaster met with courage'. This article discusses Jermy's memoir both for the individual narrative and as a starting-point for consideration of the wider issues that surrounded the making of this 'domestic life'. While Jermy's life in domestic service was bound by home (her own and other people's), her story tempers our understanding of the limited choices open to working-class women. It provides insight into the regional disparities in female employment: Jermy's life journey took her from the Broadlands Estate in Hampshire to extended periods of urban life (in London and Birmingham), concluding in rural Norfolk. There, Jermy ended her working life as her maternal grandmother had done, laundress to the 'big house'. Yet whereas the grand mother spent her final years in the workhouse, Jermy died in her own home, leaving modest savings. A member of the largest women-only organization in interwar England, the Women's Institute, which encouraged her to tell her story, she identified with its view of domestic work as skilled work. Although she did not challenge her position in the social or gender hierarchy, she developed a strong sense of self-worth throughout her working life.

Sheffield provides the focus for this short discussion of unemployed protests in the first months of the interwar depression. In the city, much discontent coincided with heightened material insecurity amongst the unemployed and was directed against the Poor Law. The Sheffield unemployed quickly became a distinct presence; they picketed during strikes and lockouts, undertook their own strikes, formed large contingents in May Day parades, tried to stop evictions and launched a range of other mobilisations. This article contends there was a close relationship between the unemployed and organised labour in Sheffield. Support for unemployed mobilisations against the state was forthcoming from a range of activists and institutions. Also raised is the question of how distinctive local movements were. This research suggests unemployed activism, levels of support for militant protest and methods of articulating discontent varied considerably. The article concludes with some suggestions for the direction of future ...

The aim of this article is to modify the view of female servants in Edwardian England as the epitome of working-class subservience and powerlessness, drawing on recent analysis of their ability to challenge their employers only by expedients such as sulking, mishearing orders and wasting time. Through detailed engagement with the relationships that one Wolverhampton businessman, Edward Lawrence, had with the servants in his life, it argues that female domestic staff were less compliant than the existing historiography allows, and had more ways of protecting their interests than we are usually led to believe.