A01=Mattie Armstrong-Price
Author_Mattie Armstrong-Price
Category=KCF
Category=NHD
Category=NHF
Category=NHTB
Category=NHTQ
class formation
comparative empire
cultural negotiations
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
everyday life histories
industrial discipline
industrial labor history
labor conflict
labor politics
liberal modernity
modern industrial society
social mobility
subversive practices
transnational labor studies
working-class respectability
workplace governance
Product details
- ISBN 9780520421554
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Respectability on the Line offers a social and cultural history of railway labor in Britain and colonial India from the 1840s through World War I. The book treats the railway industry as a microcosm through which to study the history of capitalism in the liberal imperial era. Using company records, Mattie Armstrong-Price shows how executives shaped the domestic and working lives of higher-grade employees with an eye to cultivating their respectability. Meanwhile workers' writings reveal how railway towns provided opportunities for some employees to maintain non-heteronormative living arrangements. The book tracks these histories of everyday life while also outlining stories of early trade unionism. In Britain, railway unionists established benefit funds that mimicked company-sponsored provident funds, while in colonial India workers fought to gain access to company benefits on equal terms. This comparative study shows how industrial labor was made through conflict, subversion, and accommodation across an uneven imperial field.
Mattie Armstrong-Price is Assistant Professor of History at Fordham University.
