Searching for a job has been an everyday affair in both modern and past societies, and employment a concern for both individuals and institutions. The case studies in this volume investigate job search and placement practices in European countries, Australia, and India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors explore how looking for work becomes a means by which participants (individuals, placement agents, trade unions, municipalities, administrations, state authorities, and schools) articulated specific interests, perspectives, and agendas. Taking an exploratory approach, the chapters illustrate different approaches to the history of employment and job searching, ranging from organizational and regulatory histories to the analysis of practices and autobiographical accounts. In the process, they uncover the interrelations of search practices and attempts to arrange placement services.
List of Illustrations Introduction: Finding Work and Organizing Placement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Sigrid Wadauer, Thomas Buchner, Alexander Mejstrik Chapter 1. Organizing the Market? Labour Offices and Labour Markets in Germany, 1890-1933 Thomas Buchner Chapter 2. Between Labour Market Constituencies: The Struggles to Establish Vocational Counselling in Weimar Germany David Meskill Chapter 3. Organizing Labour Markets: the British Experience Noel Whiteside Chapter 4. Creating a National Labour Market: Public Labour Exchanges in Sweden, 1890-1920 Nils Edling Chapter 5. Mediation, Allocation, Control: Trade Unions and the Changing Faces of Labour Market Intermediation in Western Europe in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Ad Knotter Chapter 6. Labour Intermediation, Uncertain Employment and the Bourses du Travail in Late Nineteenth Century France Malcolm Mansfield Chapter 7. Transforming Soldiers into Workers. The Austrian Employment Agency for Disabled Veterans During the First World War Verena Pawlowsky, Harald Wendelin Chapter 8. The Usage of Public Labour Offices by Job Seekers in Interwar Austria Irina Vana Chapter 9. A Vocation in the Family Household? Household Integration, Professionalization and Changes of Positions in Domestic Service (Austria, 1918-1938) Jessica Richter Chapter 10. Tramping in Search of Work. Practices of Wayfarers and of Authorities (Austria, 1880 - 1938) Sigrid Wadauer Chapter 11. Labour Mediation Among Seasonal Workers, Particularly the Lippe Brickmakers, 1650-1900 Piet Lourens, Jan Lucassen Chapter 12. Sardars, Kanganies and Maistries: Intermediaries in the Indian Labour Diaspora During the Colonial Period Amit Kumar Mishra Chapter 13. 'Organizing the Labour Market' in a Liberal Welfare State: The Origins of the Public Employment Service in Australia Anthony O'Donnell Concluding Remarks Sigrid Wadauer, Thomas Buchner, Alexander Mejstrik Notes on Contributors Index
