Description
Book SynopsisFrom mining to sex work and from the classroom to the docks, violence has always been a part of work. This collection of essays highlights the many different forms and expressions of violence that have arisen under capitalism in the last two hundred years, as well as how historians of working-class life and labour have understood violence. The editors draw together diverse case studies, integrating analysis of class, age, gender, sexuality, and race into the scholarship.
Essays span the United States and Canadian border, exploring gender violence, sexual harassment, the violent kidnapping of union organizers, the violence of inadequate health and safety protections, the culture of violence in state institutions, the mythology of working-class violence, and the changing nature of violence in extractive industries. The Violence of Work theorizes and historicizes violence as an integral part of working life, making it possible to understand the full scope and causes of wo
Trade Review
"I applaud the editors’ decision to take the long-view and bring this history right up to the present time. One gets a strong sense here of the continuity in violence." -- Steven High, Concordia University * Labour/Le Travail *
"The contributors’ examples of violence are heart-rending, convincing, and extremely diverse." -- James Naylor, Brandon University * Histoire sociale / Social History *
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Accounting for Violence Jeremy Milloy 1. The Perils of Sex Work in Montreal: Seeking Security and Justice in the Face of Violence, 1810–1842 Mary Ann Poutanen 2. The Rules of Discipline: Workers and the Culture of Violence in Progressive-Era Reform Schools James Schmidt 3. The “New Solution”: Anti-Labour Kidnapping, D.B. McKay, and the Legacy of the Second Seminole War Chad Pearson 4. Billy Gohl: Labour, Violence, and Myth in the Early Twentieth-Century Pacific Northwest Aaron Goings 5. Slow Violence and Hidden Injuries: The Work of Strip Mining in the American West Ryan Driskell Tate 6. The Murder of Lori Dupont: Violence, Harassment, and Occupational Health and Safety in Ontario Sarah Jessup 7. "By the Numbers": Workers’ Compensation and the (Further) Conventionalization of Workplace Violence Robert Storey 8. Gender Violence in the Hospitality Industry: Panic Buttons, Pants, and Protest Emily E. LB. Twarog Contributors
