Working together with the Rockefeller Archive Centre and partners around the world, the University of Sheffield in the UK is creating a virtual exhibition on Work and the Global History of Social Rights since the nineteenth century. The exhibition is targeted at school students and adults interested in this important history that affects everyday lives across the globe. It is an educational resource that aims to bring original historical materials into public view in order to tell the complicated story of social rights related to work, and to encourage reflection about social rights in the world today.
All contributors will be credited on our exhibition page. Please note that any items suggested need to be open access / copyright free, or to have permission granted for their use in the exhibition.
Our exhibition will be organised around the following key themes since the late nineteenth century, and items will need to dovetail with one of these (even if rather broadly):
Fair Pay: questions about equal work for equal pay, compensation for accidents, benefits for disability, sickness, family leave and unemployment, nondiscrimination in terms of pay and benefits for different kinds of workers/individuals/ethnic groups and genders, other kinds of benefits related to work like vacation days or days off for religious observances
Generations at Work: questions about child labour, old age pensions and retirement, taking time out for caring responsibilities, including maternity, paternity and family leave, bringing children to the workplace, provisions made for mothers at work, etc
Healthy Work: health and safety provisions, broadly conceived; dangerous work and how that has changed over time and differs around the world and across industries
Work and Workers: what is work? who counts as a worker? This virtual room focuses on questions about who has access to social rights related to work. How are domestic labour, informal-sector workers, the ‘under-employed’, and agricultural workers treated? What about workers who are not citizens or working illegally? Is care work at home a type of ‘work’ that comes with protections and rights?
Ideally, suggested items would be accompanied by about 30-75 words of description identifying their significance for the topic.