welcome
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.

CALL FOR PAPERS Working Life, Enterprise and Arbitration Labour and business history from the proceedings of Australian arbitration in the Commonwealth and state jurisdictions. Symposium and thematic section of Labour History. Find out more

• 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 site editor.
m.hearn@econ.usyd.edu.au