Emigration And The Labouring Poor

Robin Haines has analysed the origins, occupations, literacy, and mobilization of emigrants recruited in the UK on behalf of colonial legislatures. Her exploration of strict selection procedures shows that the symbiosis between the clergy, empire-minded philanthropic societies, and parishes, which combined to fund the emigrants' considerable pre-departure expenses, increased the opportunities for underemployed rural and domestic workers during an era of farm rationalization and industrial restructuring. Although poor, hybrid state and private funding enabled them to relocate to Australia where their skills were in demand.

Robin Haines has analysed the origins, occupations, literacy, and mobilization of emigrants recruited in the UK on behalf of colonial legislatures. Her exploration of strict selection procedures shows that the symbiosis between the clergy, empire-minded philanthropic societies, and parishes, which combined to fund the emigrants' considerable pre-departure expenses, increased the opportunities for underemployed rural and domestic workers during an era of farm rationalization and industrial restructuring. Although poor, hybrid state and private funding enabled them to relocate to Australia where their skills were in demand.

In 1933 Congress granted American laborers the right of collective bargaining, but farmworkers got no New Deal. Cindy Hahamovitch's pathbreaking account of migrant farmworkers along the Atlantic Coast shows how growers enlisted the aid of the state in an unprecedented effort to keep their fields well stocked with labor. This is the story of the farmworkers--Italian immigrants from northeastern tenements, African American laborers from the South, and imported workers from the Caribbean--who came to work in the fields of New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida in the decades after 1870. These farmworkers were not powerless, the author argues, for growers became increasingly open to negotiation as their crops ripened in the fields. But farmers fought back with padrone or labor contracting schemes and 'work-or-fight' forced-labor campaigns. Hahamovitch describes how growers' efforts became more effective as federal officials assumed the role of padroni, supplying farmers with foreign workers on demand. Today's migrants are as desperate as ever, the author concludes, not because poverty is an inevitable feature of modern agricultural work, but because the federal government has intervened on behalf of growers, preventing farmworkers from enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Includes statistics.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.