The photographs of Margaret Bourke-White and Lewis Wickes Hine are graphic accounts of the urban industrial United States during the Depression of the 1930s. Hine was a sociologist who initially used his camera to promote social reform and is best remembered for his photographs of immigrants at Ellis Island, New York, and of children laboring in…

Estimation techniques of physical capacities have been used by the United States Employment Service for a period of 40 years. In one technique, benchmarks are used to define 27 different capacities and 27 working conditions, which are ultimately consolidated into six groups of the former and seven groups of the latter. The benchmarks are actual…

Library historians and historians of literacy have been more creative than journalism historians in using individual-level historical data such as deeds, wills, depositions, surveys, and census figures to study reading behaviors of the past. For example, the series of family cost of living surveys conducted in the United States by state and…

This study used survey data to investigate the level of class consciousness among working class Americans. On a multi-dimensional measure, workers were considered to be class conscious if they identified personally with the working class, felt workers were denied a fair share of society's rewards, considered the interests of workers and management…

The Finnish labor market is sharply segregated by sex. Previous research has shown the work of women to be inferior to that of men in that the work of women is less autonomous, allows less freedom for self-regulation and self-determination, is more restricted in space and time, and is more monotonous. This study sought to determine whether the…

This paper examines the psychosocial development of Nepalese child laborers. The findings are discussed in relation to the questions of where and how learning occurs, whether transfer or generalizations occur from specific skills to other activities, and what role the socialization process plays in the psychological well-being of the Nepalese…

The paper suggests that by studying the Hawaiian plantation system, seventh graders can gain understanding of personal values and ethnic heritage. The current racial and cultural diversity in Hawaii is a result of mass immigration initiated in 1876 by the needs of the sugar and pineapple industries. Over 400,000 field workers from China, Japan,…

A rationale is presented for a new direction in educational historiography which reevaluates the treatment of the working class as active creators of history. Presently the impact of the working class on the public school history curriculum is not fully assessed or explained in light of other social and economic circumstances in the twentieth…

Diverse opinions are held by workers, union officials, and labor researchers about the importance of the quality of working life to workers. Major issues in this debate focus on the following questions: (1) Is there a workers' movement to improve the quality of working life? (2) Do workers seek meaning and self-fulfillment in their jobs? (3) Can…