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There is a growing recognition that the study of the individual enriches labour and social history research. Labour biography has increasingly diversified from a focus on life studies of prominent labour leaders to embrace the experiences of a range of working men and women, unionists and activists, or discrete networks in local communities and the workplace. Working Lives reflects this diversity.

Based in the discipline of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney, Working Lives draws together contributors examining a range of labour biography subjects and methodologies, including: labour history and narrative identity, trade union leadership, labour intellectuals, studies of the justices of the NSW Industrial Commission and a progress report on the Biographical Register of the Australian Labour Movement – which includes entries on 2,000 labour activists. Several entries on pioneering women activists can also be found at this page.

Contributors articles are directly available by simply clicking on the appropriate links. Over time we will expand the range of articles, and the debates on methodological issues, with contributions from Australian and international researchers.

NEW POSTING: William Guthrie Spence, Labour Pioneer

By Harry Knowles William Guthrie Spence remains a legendary figure in the history of the Australian labour movement. As much maligned in recent times as he was celebrated by earlier historians of the movement, Spence continues to sustain a position of dominance in any account of the growth and development of trade unionism in Australia. Spence was a prominent player both industrially and politically for working people. His achievement of securing a federal ministry between 1914 and 15 was the symbolic consummation of his long-held belief that the ultimate salvation of the worker lay in the implementation of “the larger reforms absolutely necessary to effect social reconstruction”. Find out more Photo source: National Library of Australia

• Mark Hearn - Labour and National Identity: Work, Authority and the Australian Settlement, 1901-1920
  
• Lucy Taksa - JST McGowen: A Biographical Sketch
  
• Rowan Cahill - The making of a Communist Journalist: Rupert Lockwood, 1908-1940
  
• Terry Irving - Becoming Labour Intellectuals: Esmonde Higgins, James Rawling, and the ‘self-referential location of intellectuals’
  
• Harry Knowles – Writing Labour Lives
• Peter Love: Frank Anstey - Living History
  
• Greg Patmore – Writing a history of the New South Wales Industrial Commission
  
• John Shields & Andrew Moore – The Biographical Register of the Australian Labour Movement: a progress report

Working Lives readers are encouraged to provide your comments or questions about the site or the articles either to the site editor or directly to individual contributors.

Mark Hearn,
Working Lives editor.
Department of Modern History,
Macquarie University
Mark.Hearn@mq.edu.au