Respectability on the Line
Gender, Race, and Labor Along British and Colonial Indian Railways
Book •
Mattie Armstrong-Price's Respectability on the Line analyzes railway labor in Britain and colonial India from the 1840s through World War I, treating the railway industry as a lens for studying capitalism in the liberal imperial era.
Drawing on company records and workers' writings, Armstrong-Price shows how managers cultivated respectability among higher-grade employees through housing, institutions, and benefit funds, while workers created bachelor subcultures and non-heteronormative domestic arrangements.
The book traces early trade unionism, showing how British unions mimicked company benefit structures and how white laborist unions in India sought to restrict promotions by race.
It compares conflict, accommodation, and subversion across imperial and metropolitan contexts and links cultural, social, political, and economic histories to illuminate everyday life and labor organizing.
Drawing on company records and workers' writings, Armstrong-Price shows how managers cultivated respectability among higher-grade employees through housing, institutions, and benefit funds, while workers created bachelor subcultures and non-heteronormative domestic arrangements.
The book traces early trade unionism, showing how British unions mimicked company benefit structures and how white laborist unions in India sought to restrict promotions by race.
It compares conflict, accommodation, and subversion across imperial and metropolitan contexts and links cultural, social, political, and economic histories to illuminate everyday life and labor organizing.
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Miranda Melcher
Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)
Mentioned by
Miranda Melcher
Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)
