Industrial Labor Force Research Articles

Tu: A Novel (review)

Reviewed by: Tu: A Novel Elizabeth Deloughrey Tu: A Novel, by Patricia Grace. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8248-2927-1; 287 pages, author's notes. US$16.00. A decade ago there were few Mäori novels that took place outside of Aotearoa New Zealand, yet recent years have witnessed a whole new geographical imagination in the literature. Witi Ihimaera's The Uncle's Story (2000), for instance, details the experience of Mäori in the Vietnam War, connecting diverse landscapes and histories across the Pacific through the literary frame of the wartime diary, particularly as it is circulated and interpreted by family and ultimately the audience of the novel. Patricia Grace's novel Tu deepens the historical frame by inscribing the legacy of Mäori involvement in both world wars. This literary turn to the transnational geographies of war may say much about our current historical moment of global militarization. Yet these novels cannot be reduced to contemporary political events, as [End Page 464] relevant as they may be. While there are obvious overlaps between our current-day militarism and the ways in which the colonial subjects of the European empires were utilized in theSecond World War, the frame of Patricia Grace's sixth novel suggests a family archeology as well as a cultural excavation of Mäori participation in national and international politics. Like Ihimaera's novel, the narrative ofTu is drawn from state archives, military reports, diaries, and family history. In its skillful telling, the novelweaves together letters, journal entries, and omniscient narration. The layering of multiple narrative genres here is a testimony to the complexity of the wartime subject as well as to itsultimate irrecoverability. Its deft handling of these materials and its invocation of such broad cultural landscapes earned the novel the Deutz Medal for Fiction as well as a Montana Book Award. The name of the novel's protagonist, Tu, is not only a reference to the god of warfare (Tumatauenga) but also reflects the long legacy of Mäori participation in both world wars; our mid-twentieth century protagonist is named after the 28 (Mäori) Battalion that preceded him. As Te Hokowhitu-a-Tu, he is ancestrally linked to "the Many Fighting Men of Tumatauenga" (35), highlighting a continuity of masculine warriors as well as a cyclical pattern of sacrifice and renewal. Connecting both Mäori and Christian cosmologies, as she has in earlier novels like Potiki (1986), Grace describes her protagonist's second name as Bernard, the "patron saint oftravelers and mountain climbers" (35). In a space/time collapse between Aotearoa and the European Alps, theprotagonist Tu imagines himself somewhat destined to be stationed in the mountains of Italy with the Mäori Battalion. His two elder brothers, Rangi and Pita, whose names and sacrificial actions reiterate the Mäori and Christian symbology, are deeply distraught when their underage brother appears at the warfront. This foregrounds a fundamental tension between home and away that is reflected in narrative terms on a more local scale in their family's migration, over the previous decade, from a rural community to urban Wellington. The connection between national and international migration is neatly woven together, reiterating Grace's earlier concern in Cousins (1992), for instance, to locate the historical and genealogical nexus of Mäori culture in the rural sphere and connect this to a politicized urban space that makes the unification of diverse iwi (tribes) possible. In Tu, the shift from the rural to urban raises similar issues in terms of the modernization of New Zealand culture through global war, particularly how the expansion of women's waged labor reconfigures gender relations between husband and wife as well as brother and sister. (For instance, when they first migrate to Wellington, Pita disapproves of his sisters entering the industrial labor force.) Like the city, the warfront and the Mäori Battalion in particular provide the space in which connections may be established between men of diverse iwi, but Grace seems to question the long-term implications of a unity forged through empire, violence, and loss. For example, Tu's maritime voyage around the world to the warfront [End Page...

:Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

:Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

The Public Health Act of 1848.

The Public Health Act of 1848, legislating on the sanitary conditions of England and Wales, is one of the great milestones in public health history, "the beginning of a commitment to proactive, rather than a reactive, public health" (1). For the first time, the state became the guarantor of standards of health and environmental quality and provided resources to local units of government in make the necessary changes to achieve those standards. The Public Health Act established a General Board of Health empowered to create local boards of health, either when petitioned in do so by at least one tenth of the taxpayer, in the district, or compulsorily when the average mortality rate in the area exceeded the national crude death rate of 23 per 1000 over a period of seven years. The local boards had authority to deal with water supplies, sewerage, control of offensive trades, quality of foods, paving of streets, removal of garbage, and other sanitary matters. A local board could appoint a medical officer of health, an inspector of nuisances, a surveyor, a treasurer and a clerk, National and local boards of health were accountable to and underwritten by the national Treasury, and they reported to the Privy Council. Loans for capital expenses were supplied by the central government and subsequently financed by local rates (2). The circumstances in which this ground-breaking public health legislation was conceived and enacted have long been studied and discussed by historians (3). The Act is generally viewed as a response in the social and health problems generated by the industrial revolution. Starting in the late 18th century with the expansion of the market economy, the introduction of stream power, the growth of transportation, and the increasing dominance of the factory system of production over home labour, the industrial revolution demanded a constant source of labourer, to feed the growth of machine production. Workers thus had to be brought into the factories, located in industrial towns and cities. Mobilizing this industrial labour force required abolition of the older system of poor relief. Landowners, rationalizing agricultural production, had enlarged and enclosed their holdings and thus began to drive rural labourers off the land. At first, provision was made for the landless and the unemployed in the parishes of their birth, following the Elizabethan Poor Law system. But as the ranks of the unemployed swelled and poor rates rose, the old Poor Law came to be viewed--at least by landowners, industrialists, and rate-payers--as a constraint on the mobility of labour and an impediment to progress (4). The organization and financing of poor relief was a central social policy problem of the early 19th century A Royal Commission was appointed in 1832 to examine the operation and administration of the Poor Laws, and its report, largely written by Edwin Chadwick, appeared in 1834. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, incorporating the principles of the report, decreed that no able-bodied pauper could be given assistance except in a workhouse, The conditions of labour in the workhouses were to be made "less eligible", i.e. more miserable than those of the worst situated labourer outside the workhouse. The immediate intent and result of the Act was to reduce the burden of the poor rates, but it also served to drive the poor out of the rural areas and into the new industrial towns. Within 20 years, the proportion of the population living in industrial cities doubled and the mushrooming of towns and cities, speculative building practices, ramshackle housing and congestion led to an explosion of disease rates, Builders rarely troubled themselves to supply sewers, water closets or privies and little was done to supply fresh water, clean the streets or remove the garbage. The cholera epidemic of 1831 and 1832 had drawn attention to the deplorable lack of sanitation in the industrial cities. It was obvious that cholera was concentrated in the poorest districts, where sanitation was most neglected and the slum housing most befouled by excremental filth and other dirt. …

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force Amy L. Fairchild

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force Amy L. Fairchild

The Landscape of Iñupiat Eskimo Industrial Labor

Archaeological data from excavations at a north Alaskan commercial shore whaling station and documentary information are used to trace the development of an Inupiat Eskimo labor force in the western Arctic commercial whaling industry in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. For nearly a thousand years, I nupiat have been communal hunters of the bowhead whale. American commercial whalers arrived at Point Barrow in 1854 and in 1888 began hiring Eskimos to staff the whaling stations as wage labor. The material remuneration for labor enabled many Eskimo commoners to strive for the otherwise unattainable high-status role of traditional umialik. This initial commoditization of Eskimo labor in the western Arctic saw an incorporation of two distinctive landscapes: one indigenous and Inupiat, the other introduced and Euroamerican. These landscapes had some overlap, but were not at all coterminous; each had its own origins and means and ends, its own raison d’etre.

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. By Amy L Fairchild (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. xiii plus 385 pp.)

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. By Amy L Fairchild (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. xiii plus 385 pp.)

Review: Science at the Borders, Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labour Force

Review: Science at the Borders, Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labour Force

Lebanon's Foreign Trade Relations in the Postwar Era: Scenarios for Integration (1990–Present)

As a small country with limited cultivated land and very few natural resources, Lebanon has always exhibited far greater dependence on the international economy than other countries in its region. Successive Lebanese governments have taken this dependence on the global economy as a given, trying to make it work to the advantage of the national economy.' In the postwar period (1990-present) Lebanese governments have striven to overcome the devastation caused by the war (which also severed many of Lebanon's links to the outside world) and restore growth to the national economy, largely by seeking closer ties with the Arab and European economies and greater integration into the global economy. As a prelude to the discussion of the three integration scenarios, the first part of the article provides some background information on the balance of trade and the composition and geographical distribution of Lebanon's foreign trade. The second, third and fourth parts discuss the three main integration scenarios, whilst the conclusion focuses on some of the problems involved in the simultaneous pursuit of all three projects, and speculates on whether or not Lebanon's policy-making elite possesses the will and the resources to overcome the challenges involved in transforming the local economy into a competitive one that is closely integrated with the Arab and European economies and immersed in the global economy.

Amy L Fairchild, Science at the borders: immigrant medical inspection and the shaping of the modern industrial labor force, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, pp. xiii, 385, £35.50 (hardback 0-8018-7080-1).

Amy L Fairchild, Science at the borders: immigrant medical inspection and the shaping of the modern industrial labor force, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, pp. xiii, 385, £35.50 (hardback 0-8018-7080-1). - Volume 49 Issue 1

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force (review)

Reviewed by: Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force John Parascandola Amy L. Fairchild . Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. xiii + 385 pp. Ill. $48.00 (0-8018-7080-1). Amy Fairchild's book is a welcome addition to the literature on medicine and immigration. She goes beyond earlier works on the subject by providing much more detail about and analysis of the medical examination of immigrants arriving in the United States, and by devoting substantial attention to immigration at ports other than New York. Since Ellis Island was by far the largest immigration depot, and its history is relatively well documented, it is not surprising that it has received the lion's share of attention from scholars. Fairchild helps to redress the balance by discussing in some detail the medical examination of immigrants at the Canadian border, the Mexican border, the Gulf Coast, and the West Coast. The period covered, roughly from 1890 to 1930, was one of mass immigration to the United States. Fairchild's main thesis in Science at the Borders is a novel one, namely, that "the immigrant medical examination was shaped by an industrial imperative to discipline the laboring force in accordance with industrial expectations" (p. 16). The medical examination, conducted by physicians of the Public Health Service, was subjected to various pressures, with tension always present between those (e.g., labor and nativists) emphasizing exclusion and those (e.g., industrialists) emphasizing inclusion in the immigration process. Capitalism required the immigrants for the labor force, and industrial interests saw the medical examination as a new technique to discipline arriving workers. Fairchild argues that in general the examination was meant to promote the adoption of core industrial values and to create a cadre of good industrial citizens. According to Fairchild, the discipline involved in the process "represented immersion in a particular, routinized, ordered set of exercises or motions: waiting in line, moving in unison, stepping up to the medical inspector, moving forward, stepping up to the immigrant inspector, answering questions" (p. 66). The public nature of the examination, and the fact that it represented the power of enforcement because a certain number of immigrants were denied admission into the country, also played a role in communicating industrial values and norms. The immigrants were thus "taught the rules, the repetitive, monotonous habits of industrial order" (p. 67). Although there is certainly merit in this [End Page 913] argument, the question remains of how much socialization into the industrial order could have been accomplished in the course of an examination that for many took place in a matter of seconds, especially at Ellis Island. More research is needed to fully assess Fairchild's claim about the purpose of the medical examination. The author herself argues that the examination was sometimes used for purposes of exclusion rather than discipline, and the second part of her book is devoted to this subject. This was particularly true in the case of Asian immigrants, the majority of whom arrived on the West Coast. The use of the medical examination in this context was tied to American racial attitudes toward Asians: "The function of the exam along the Pacific Coast was not discipline. Rather, consistent with other federal legislation, the goal was exclusion of a group of immigrants deemed wholly unsuited for either civic or industrial citizenship" (p. 134). Asian immigrants arriving on the West Coast, regardless of class, were generally subjected to primary physical examinations and the testing of stool samples for parasitic diseases. Parasitic infections, which were not even tested for at most immigration stations, were the major cause of exclusion on the Pacific Coast, whereas immigrants on the East Coast were usually excluded for conditions affecting economic potential (e.g., eye diseases, hernia, heart conditions). Fairchild admits that the Public Health Service doctors did not explicitly articulate discipline as a primary purpose of the medical examination, but saw themselves as excluding dangerous diseases and undesirable immigrants. One would like to know whether these doctors, and the immigration inspectors, were to some extent specifically aware of...

Book Review: History: Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Book Review: History: Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Amy L. Fairchild. Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. xii + 385 pp., index. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. $48 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsAmy L. Fairchild. Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. xii + 385 pp., index. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. $48 (cloth).Bonnie Ellen BlusteinBonnie Ellen Blustein Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 95, Number 3September 2004 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/429017 Views: 70Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Book Review| April 01 2004 Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force, Amy L. Fairchild. Robert Barde Robert Barde Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2004) 23 (3): 106–107. https://doi.org/10.2307/27501461 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Robert Barde; Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2004; 23 (3): 106–107. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/27501461 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2004 Immigration and Ethnic History Society2004 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

CREATING EQUALITY IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: AN AGENDA FOR CHANGE FOR WOMEN AND ETHNIC MINORITIES

Within the UK, construction has an unenviable status as being the industry with the lowest representation of women and ethnic minority employees. Despite considerable efforts to diversify the industry's labor force, this has had little tangible effect on the numbers of these non-traditional entrants. Empirical studies that have explored aspects of women's and ethnic minorities' employment have tended to deal with the experiences of these under-represented groups separately. In contrast, this paper uses the findings from two research studies to compare women and ethnic minority employees' experiences of gaining employment and working within the industry. Both studies suggest the construction workplace presents a challenging and hostile environment for non-traditional entrants, and women and ethnic minority employees face both similar and different challenges and attitudinal barriers. Discriminatory behavior perpetrated by the dominant white male workforce is commonplace, as are informal recruitment practices, exclusive networks and a competitive and adversarial culture. By comparing and analyzing the results and recommendations from the two studies, the paper identifies where action is required to lead to a more balanced and socially representative workforce in the future. The similarity of the recommendations put forward by these studies suggests that there would be an advantage in developing a more holistic approach towards managing diversity in the sector. It is argued that addressing a broad range of equal opportunities in an integrated and strategic manner would enhance opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, and for the workforce as a whole.

Stalinismus in der Tschechoslowakei. Forschungslage und sozialgeschichtliche Anmerkungen am Beispiel der Industriearbeiterschaft

Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. The State of the Research and Social-Historical Observations Using the Example of Industrial Workers Different forms of institutionalized terror are central themes of research about the socialist period of communist Czechoslovakia. The analytical concepts of the exercise of power and the idea of the ubiquitous control of the communist party over society obscure one's view of the «flexible management» of the government administration. Using the example of industrial workers, this article indicates that, under the pressure of the needs of an industrial society, the party and labor unions already early on were forced to channel «divergent» industrial situations through regulations that adapted to their particular contexts. State socialism was not successful in forming in the long run an industrial labor force through the disciplinary project of «terror» and rigid demands for integration in the institutional system.

Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force

Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing to use our site, or clicking "Continue," you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy | Continue

Science at the borders: immigrant medical inspection and the shaping of the modern industrial labor force

Contents:Acknowledgments List of AbbreviationsIntroduction. Immigration by the Numbers: Rethinking the Immigrant Medical ExperiencePart I. Numbers Large: Immigrant Medical Inspection as an Inclusionary Tool One. Immigrants and the New Industrial Economy Two. The Function of Medical Inspection: Restriction, Instruction, and Discipline of the Laboring Body Three. The Medical Gaze: Science in Industrial-Era AmericaPart II. Numbers Small: Immigrant Medical Inspection as an Exclusionary Tool Four. The Shape of the Line: Immigrant Medical Inspection from Coast to Coast Five. At the Borders of Science: Diagnostic Technology at the Intersection of Race, Class, Disease, and Industrial Citizenship Six. Drawing the Color Line: Radical Patterns of Medical Certification and ExclusionEpilogue. The End of the Line: Immigrant Medical Inspection after 1924Appendix. Note on Data Collection, Cleaning, Coding, and Analysis Notes Index

Occupational lung disease in China.

Occupational lung disease has been a major public health problem in China. The recently transformed industrial structure and expansion of the industrial labor force, accompanying the rapid industrialization and economic growth, pose both tremendous challenges and opportunities for occupational health policy and research. New occupational health problems are emerging, while the traditional occupational lung disease continued to occur. Simultaneously, relevant scientific research and professional activities have accelerated notably. The progress and achievement in occupational health research are creating more powerful forces in eliminating industrial hazards and protecting workers' health in China.

Women on Red Clydeside: The Invisible Workforce Debate

Introduction At the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, the west of Scotland was the industrial heartland of the nation, with Glasgow a key focus for the wartime industries, notably engineering, munitions production and ship building and thousands of women were drafted into the industrial labour force, in order to meet the production targets of wartime. However, despite the desperate need for female labour, women were not welcomed into heavy industry by male workers, or their trade unions, and the story of women’s wartime employment in this sector of pro duction is characterised by gender struggles over the issues of dilution, job security and wage levels. Indeed, such was the perceived threat of women’s employment in traditionally male trades that the west of Scotland, instead of being remembered as a key centre of munitions production, became infamous as a key centre of industrial unrest, out of which was born the notion of ‘Red Clydeside’.