This publication in English introduces a new field of
research into working-class history: Lore of the Working Class, i.e. the study
of workers' relics, memories, traditions, and workers' revitalisations in their
everyday lives and their various movements.
Three Nordic folklorists have written this book: Anne Eriksen (Oslo). Flemming Hemmersam (Copenhagen), and Ulla-Maija Peltonen (Helsinki), and it has a preface written by Professor Bengt R. Jonsson (Stockholm). Flemming Hemmersam has acted as editor, he has written the introduction, and is responsible for the general bibliography, and the index.
The authors are folklorists graduated from universities in Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Flemming Hemmersam has contributed Danish material in three articles covering the time 1870 to 1940. They are, "Familiar Quotations in the Danish Labour Movement, 1870-1920"; "Symbols, Beliefs and Social Attitudes in the Workers' First of May Songs, 1890-1924"; "Social-Democratic Festive Innovations in the Inter-War Years".
The Danish contributions are based on Social-Democratic materials within the field of what, in the book, is termed labourlore, i.e. a lore of the Danish labour movement.
The Norwegian material in three articles by Anne Eriksen are examples of workerlore, i.e. the lore of workers' everyday existence. She looks into workers' sense of religion in the article "The Light and Dark Sides of Life ... Experience and Interpretation in Autobiographies"; "Church, Workers - and Religion"; "Sunday - Sacred Time and Leisure Time". The Norwegian material mainly belongs to the inter-war years.
Ulla-Maija Peltonen from Finland examines a workerlore and labourlore related to Communist groups in Finland from 1918; at this time the Finnish Civil War had a major impact on the transmission of ideas in working-class circles. This she discusses in the articles "Workers' Narrative Tradition in Finland after 1918", "Memories Concerning the 'Black Times' of the 1920s and '30s"; "Historical Memory and Collective Tradition in Working-Class Folklore", just as she writes about "Working-Class Lore in Finish Archives".
The book is published by the Society for Research into Labour History (SFAH) in Denmark. It has 363 pages with 33 illustrations.
The book can be ordered from the SFAH. The price is DKK 100.- (plus postage). Purchase the book!
af Tommy Balle