Political Ideologies and Social Movements: A Report on the 1994 Organization of American Historians Conference
Year: 1995
Type: article
Abstract: The theme of the eighty-seventh annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians readily incorporated a substantial array of papers and sessions on labor and working-class history.These sessions evidence both the ideological and methodological range that characterizes historical analyses in the field as well as the diverse media being employed to relate the history of working people.Over 200 participants gathered on Friday afternoon to hear Paul Faler, Theresa Murphy, and Susan Pennybacker discuss E. P. Thompson's influence on American historians and the writing of American working-class history.Paul Faler led off the session with a critical analysis of Thompson's legacy, arguing that general interest in Thompson's analysis dissipated quickly after the 1960s, leaving labor history "the rust bowl of the profession."Ultimately, Faler suggested, Thompson's identification of class with culture proved the undoing of class in historical analysis.Theresa Murphy disagreed, suggesting that class as a cultural category needs expansion rather than repudiation.She particularly emphasized the role of religion in shaping working-class consciousness.Susan Pennybacker analyzed how the differing political cultures in England and the United States produced a thinker of Thompson's stature but made his ideas difficult to translate into the American environment.David Montgomery, who chaired the session, eloquently defended the Thompson legacy, arguing that "the style of cultural criticism practiced by Thompson drew historians' attention to the whole order of human life and could find much that was congenial in the current quest for multiple narratives."Montgomery went on to suggest that historians today are in danger
Authors: Gary M. Fink, Gary L. Bailey, Donna Gabaccia
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2069035843