The Social Worlds of Steel. Re-thinking Industrial History and Heritage

这个项目探讨了钢铁工业如何塑造了20世纪英国的生活和社区。以斯旺西为基地，并使用新编目的档案材料，研究人员将使用威尔士作为区域案例研究，以检查领先钢铁公司对员工及其家人的工作场所行为和社会生活的企业影响。通过在肖顿（Shotton）、埃布维尔（Ebbw Vale）、纽波特（Newport）和塔尔伯特港（Port Talbot）等城镇提供便利设施、住房、体育设施、交通和服务，大型钢铁公司的影响范围远远超出了工作场所。本研究项目旨在通过考虑工人及其家庭如何在钢铁企业与社区互动的四个关键空间中对企业文化做出反应，更好地理解钢铁的社会影响：1。雄心勃勃的，与钢铁工业相关的住房倡议，如1917年在肖顿的西兰花园城市的规划，以及20世纪50年代在塔尔伯特港的桑德菲尔德庄园的建设，对城市景观产生了深远的影响，因为钢铁厂和他们的劳动力在20世纪增长。将公司和地方当局的住房记录与口头访谈和社会学调查的证据相结合，项目的这一部分将提出以下问题：钢铁公司在满足工人住房需求方面的有效性如何；未来的居住者是如何看待这些新住宅区的？工作场所的社会互动钢铁厂是高度分割的工作场所。员工被划分为工艺、流程和白领部门，以及许多不同的生产部门。钢铁行业的员工如何应对工作场所的分隔性？食堂、洗衣更衣空间和厕所设施的提供如何反映了工作场所的地位划分？角色和地位的差异是如何通过服装和称呼方式等习俗来表达的？员工在应对这些做法时表现出了怎样的弹性（如果有的话）？公司记录，包括劳资委员会的会议记录，将被用来审查这些工作场所结构是如何受到员工的挑战和考验的。休闲太空钢铁公司在员工的体育和休闲设施上投入了大量资金，但这些投资带来了什么呢？公司产生的宣传表明，钢厂体育和社交俱乐部是得到良好支持的机构，可以培养工作场所的认同感和对公司的忠诚度。根据口头证据和内部会议记录，这种说法的准确性将受到质疑。是什么促使钢铁企业投资这些设施？是钢铁工人喜欢公司的社交生活，还是家庭或社区社交俱乐部的其他吸引力更有吸引力？4. 在1945年之后的几年里，工人身份的变化以及家庭（超过俱乐部或工作机构）作为钢铁工人工作时间以外的主要空间的重要性日益增加，导致钢铁公司试图将其触角延伸到员工的家庭生活中。来自公司报纸和口头证词的证据将被用来询问：公司采取了哪些措施来与员工的家庭和社会世界建立联系？工人和他们的家人对公司在他们家里的存在作何反应？通过调查钢铁的社会世界，该研究旨在改变我们过去对该行业角色的理解方式，摆脱更为主导的经济视角，这种视角很少将人和地方置于中心舞台。通过一系列面向公众观众和遗产专业人士的产出和参与活动，项目成果将为博物馆中钢铁的表现形式提供新的思考，并使钢铁社区的居民（过去和现在）更好地了解他们在工业历史中的地位。

This project explores how the steel industry shaped lives and communities in twentieth-century Britain. Based in Swansea, and using newly-catalogued archival material, the researcher will use Wales as a regional case study to examine the corporate influence of leading steel firms over the workplace behaviours and social lives of employees and their families. Through their role as providers of amenities, housing, sports facilities, transport and services in towns like Shotton, Ebbw Vale, Newport and Port Talbot, the reach of large steel companies extended well beyond the workplace. This research project aims to better understand the social impact of steel by considering how workers and their families responded to corporate culture in four key spaces of interaction between steel firm and community:1. NeighbourhoodAmbitious, steel industry-related housing initiatives such as the planning of Sealand Garden City in Shotton from 1917, and the construction of Sandfields Estate in Port Talbot in the 1950s had a profound impact on the urban landscape as steelworks and their labour forces grew in the twentieth century. Combining company and local authority housing records with evidence from oral interviews and sociological surveys, this part of the project will ask: how effective were steel firms in meeting the housing needs of their workers; and how were these new residential neighbourhoods viewed by the intended occupants?2. Social Interactions in the WorkplaceSteelworks were highly segmented workplaces. Employees were differentiated into craft, process and white collar divisions as well as a host of different production departments. How did steel employees respond to the compartmentalised nature of their workplace? How did the provision of canteens, washing and changing spaces and toilet facilities reflect status divisions in the workplace? How were differences of role and status signalled through conventions such as clothing and forms of address? What resilience, if any, did employees show in response to these practices? Company records, including minutes of Works Councils will be used to examine how these workplace structures were challenged and tested by employees.3. Leisure SpacesSteel companies invested heavily in sports and leisure facilities for their employees, but what did these investments deliver? Company-generated publicity represented steelworks sports and social clubs as well-supported institutions which fostered workplace identity and company loyalty. Using oral evidence and minutes of internal meetings, the accuracy of this picture will be questioned. What motivated steel firms to invest in these facilities? Did steelworkers embrace corporate social life, or were the alternative attractions of home or neighbourhood social clubs more compelling? 4. Domestic SpaceIn the years after 1945, changing worker identities and the growing importance of the home (over the club or works institution) as the main space occupied by the steelworker outside working hours, led steel companies to attempt to extend their reach into the domestic and family lives of their employees. Evidence from company newspapers and oral testimonies will be used to ask: what measures did firms use to connect with the families and social worlds of their employees? How did workers and their families respond to this corporate presence in the world of their home? By investigating the social worlds of steel, the research aims to transform the way we understand the role of the industry in our past, moving away from more dominant economic perspectives which rarely position people and places centre stage. Through a range of outputs and engagement activities aimed at public audiences and heritage professionals, the project findings will inform new thinking on representations of steel in museums, and give the residents of steel communities, past and present, a greater sense of their place in industrial history.