Introduction
The rise of industry transformed labor and impacted landscapes, gender roles, and living conditions. Today, in most of the Americas and across Europe, the evidence of these industrial signatures is found in the form of rusting factories, abandoned buildings, deserted mines, scarred landscapes, and decaying cities and towns. These are all reminders of an economy that was once dominated by industrial capitalism for more than a century. While most of the factory production has moved to Asia, many communities in the Americas and in Europe debate about how to use and interpret these abandoned industrial properties. Archaeologists are involved in documenting the industrial past, and this work ranges from recording the engineering and technological feats to studying labor and working-class conditions.
Definition
Labor archaeology is about examining issues of power, resistance, and the affects of industrialization from the perspective of the laboring classes.
Historical Background
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References
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Further Reading
Gordon, R.B & P.M. Malone. 1994. The texture of Industry: an archaeological view of industry in North America. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Silliman, S.W. 2006. Struggling with labor, working with identities, in M. Hall & S.W. Silliman (ed.) Historical archaeology: 147-66. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
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Shackel, P.A. (2014). Labor Archaeology. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1618
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