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Selected Works

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Social history

2018

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in History

Gray Dissertation Submission.Pdf, Audrey Gray Aug 2018

Gray Dissertation Submission.Pdf, Audrey Gray

Audrey Gray

How is a cultural identity created, defined, and used?  In this study, I have traced Bethnal Green’s cultural identity in the period between 1550 and1945.  It was a cultural identity defined by poverty, but also by hope; residents were poor but scrappy, able to make do with the worst of circumstances.  That cultural identity defined the area to outsiders; it was also embraced by the residents.   Following the area’s path from an idyllic and genteel area to an overcrowded slum, I have traced the experience of poverty, and the development and impact of poverty relief, from the perspective of both …


Gray Dissertation Submission.Pdf, Audrey Gray Aug 2018

Gray Dissertation Submission.Pdf, Audrey Gray

Audrey Gray

How is a cultural identity created, defined, and used?  In this study, I have traced Bethnal Green’s cultural identity in the period between 1550 and1945.  It was a cultural identity defined by poverty, but also by hope; residents were poor but scrappy, able to make do with the worst of circumstances.  That cultural identity defined the area to outsiders; it was also embraced by the residents.   Following the area’s path from an idyllic and genteel area to an overcrowded slum, I have traced the experience of poverty, and the development and impact of poverty relief, from the perspective of both …


Bicycle Messenger Boys And The Evolution Of American Labor Laws, Christopher A. Sweet Dec 2017

Bicycle Messenger Boys And The Evolution Of American Labor Laws, Christopher A. Sweet

Christopher A. Sweet

This article examines how bicycle messenger boys found themselves entwined in evolving American labor laws from 1890-1940. Anti-child labor organizations such as the National Child Labor Committee used exposés of the working conditions of messenger boys to help force passage of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Beyond child labor laws, bicycle messenger boys also shaped workplace liability and worker’s compensation laws. Companies who employed bicycle messengers who were injured or killed on the job usually claimed the boys owned their own bicycles and worked as independent contractors rather than employees therefore absolving themselves of liability.