Clifton Hood. In Pursuit of Privilege

In The Making of the English Working Class (1963), E. P. Thompson famously remarked that the English working class was not conjured to meet the needs of the newly developing capitalist system, but was rather “present at its own making,” as an active agent that drew upon its own traditions, social relations, customs, and skills to form a sometimes cohesive yet often fractious class of workers who could act in their own best interests (Thompson, 10). We come to know this as “history from below,” the use of often overlooked archival materials to give voice to those with less power and prestige, in order to view them as something other than victims of historical process. This new “social history” inspired a movement within historiography, and has now become a commonplace, accepted as part of the historical narrative that is often deployed as a political tool to defend and promote the interests of those in opposition to dominant systems.

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