Folklore as Politics in Great Britain: Working-Class Critiques of Upper-Class Strike Breakers in the 1926 General Strike

Abstract

Believing their privileged existence and their world be threatened by the 1926 British General Strike, upper-class volunteers came out as strikebreakers and transformed a potential working-class revolution into a nine-day May festival. Their behavior was reminiscent of larks, rags, fancy dress, and leg-pulls-traditional university and Society play genres also used raise charity funds, criticize others, or to cloak serious purposes or ideas. Because of the apparently playful nature of the volunteers' conduct, however, most scholars have ignored the political import of such activities. Individual and media commentary from a working-class perspective, however, reveals a complex reading of the volunteers' performance and a critique of their misappropriation of traditional forms defeat the strike and narrow the definition of Englishness. [folklore, Great Britain, festival, politics, humor]