Award Jury Report 2023

 Jan Lucassen Award 2023

 The committee, consisting of Silke Neunsinger (Swedish Labour Movement Archives and Library and Uppsala University), Andrea Caracausi (University of Padua) and Jan Lucassen (International Institute of Social History), was happy to receive eleven interesting papers, all fulfilling the basic requirements for submission (letter of recommendation from the supervisor, appropriate length, references, etc.). All papers were also interesting, and the committee has learnt a lot. We start with an overview of the topics and after that motivate our decision.

 Generally speaking, among the submitted papers, social, economic, and socio-economic approaches are more or less in balance. This is also true for the geographical distribution: three papers dealt with the UK/USA, two with Sweden, two with the Iberian Peninsula, two with France, one with Italy, and another with the Caucasus. However, given the political centre stage of Central and Eastern Europe, it is remarkable that the regions were not included.

The different historical periods are less well represented than on earlier occasions. Only one paper concerned the early middle ages, one with the late eighteenth century, four with the nineteenth century and five the twentieth century.

The gender balance among the applicants was ok. Even though most of the authors were not native speakers the papers were well-written and easy to read.

 The unanimous winner is Maya Adereth from the London School of Economics. Her impressive paper deals with the importance of the historical organisational context that shaped the attitude of trade unions vis-avis the welfare state. Her question, "When do labour movements come to support universal welfare politics?" is successfully analysed by comparing several American and British (industrial) trade unions around 1900.

Although starting from a similar background around 1850 (voluntary benefit contributions for members), around 1900, the Trade Unions in the UK supported Welfare State provisions. They thus had accepted and even welcomed the role of the central (and local) government(s), in which their influence was also growing by extending - in particular male - voting rights. On the contrary, their comrades in the USA, the original friendly societies cum trade unions, had turned into ever more significant and more complex insurance organisations, independent of the state and eventually also of trade unions. In other words, the British "came to advocate for universal state-subsidized health and pension schemes openly". At the same time, the American "doubled down on its voluntarist attitude and even campaigned against universal state reforms. " [.....]

Admonitions for no less than two paper writers:

- Joseph Mas Ferrer from the University of Girona, for his paper entitled “Forks and napkins on poor tables. Production and consumption in humble rural households at the end.  of the Ancien Régime (north-eastern Catalonia, 1750-1807)” We found the paper highly original. Using a database of 350 probate inventories, it exploits quantitative methodology and dialogues with the debate on the consumer revolution and the living standards of poor people during the industrial revolution. The results suggest that, by the end of the Ancien Régime, poor rural households in Catalonia were characterised by having insufficient land, being involved in few domestic production activities and yet had increased the range of consumer goods.

The second is for Claudio Monopoli from the University of Padua / Venice / Verona for his paper entitled “The agency of pornographic photography: sexuality and visual culture bin Italian Censorship nets, `1839-1919.” The paper deals with the agency of pornographic photography through police repression and control nets in 19th and early 20th-century Italy. It is not only original, using a large variety of primary unpublished and published sources, but it also dialogues with the methodologies and the questions advanced by the Actor-Network Theory and the anthropology of consumption.

Lastly, we also want to encourage the PhD students to submit their papers. We would be very happy to receive more papers.

Andrea Caracausi, Jan Lucassen & Silke Neunsinger