Documents Perchard, Andrew 2 results

"This article examines British coal owners' use of medical and scientific knowledge of occupational lung diseases in the mining industry to resist regulatory changes between 1918 and 1946. It explores the strategies deployed by coal owners in response to scientific and lay debates over the hazard to workers' health presented by dust, and legislation to compensate miners for pneumoconiosis and silicosis contracted in the nation's collieries. In particular, it investigates coal owner deployment of the views of notable scientists, especially the eminent physiologist John Scott Haldane (1860–1936), who insisted on the harmlessness of coal dust, in order to avoid costly compensation payments, as well as capital investment in ameliorative measures to reduce miners' exposure to such hazards. In so doing, the article provides new insights by illustrating how coal owners influenced mining education programmes, deploying the arguments of Haldane and others, with direct implications for health and safety in British mines. This contributed to the mounting public health disaster wrought by coal dust on Britain's mining communities. This process is viewed as part of the broader political activities of the coal owners – and their industry body, the Mining Association of Great Britain – in its attempts to influence the regulatory process in a period of dramatic change in the political economy of coal."

"Since the 1970s, the closure of mines, mills, and factories has marked a rupture in working-class lives. The Deindustrialized World interrogates the process of industrial ruination, from the first impact of layoffs in metropolitan cities, suburban areas, and single-industry towns to the shock waves that rippled outward, affecting entire regions, countries, and beyond.
Seeking to hear the “roar ... on the other side of the silence,” scholars from France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States share their own stories of ruin and ruination and ask others what it means to be working class in a postindustrial world. In Part 1, they explore the ruination of former workplaces and the damaged health and injured bodies of industrial workers. Part 2 brings to light disparities of experiences between rural resource towns and cities, where hipster revitalization often overshadows industrial loss. Part 3 reveals the ongoing impact of deindustrialization on working people and their place in the new global economy.
Together, the chapters open a window on the lived experiences of people living at ground zero of deindustrialization, revealing its layered impacts and examining how workers, environmentalists, activists, and the state have responded to its challenges. This volume will appeal to historians, geographers, and social science scholars as well as anyone interested in the issues surrounding capitalist development, urban revitalization, and poverty, class, and community."