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

该项目探讨了钢铁工业如何塑造二十世纪英国的生活和社区。总部设在斯旺西，并使用新编目的档案材料，研究人员将使用威尔士作为一个区域案例研究，研究领先的钢铁公司对员工及其家庭的工作场所行为和社会生活的企业影响。大型钢铁公司在肖顿、埃布谷、纽波特和塔尔博特港等城镇提供便利设施、住房、体育设施、交通和服务，其影响力远远超出了工作场所。本研究项目旨在通过考虑钢铁企业与社区之间的四个关键互动空间中工人及其家庭对企业文化的反应来更好地理解钢铁的社会影响：1.雄心勃勃的，与钢铁行业相关的住房计划，如1917年在肖顿规划的西兰花园城市，以及20世纪50年代在塔尔博特港建造的Sandfields Estate，随着钢铁厂及其劳动力在20世纪世纪的增长，对城市景观产生了深远的影响。结合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，该项目的这一部分将问：钢铁公司在满足工人住房需求方面的效率如何？这些新的住宅区是如何被预期的居住者所看待的？2.工作场所的社会互动钢铁厂是高度细分的工作场所。员工被分为工艺，工艺和白色领部门以及许多不同的生产部门。钢铁公司的员工是如何应对工作场所的条块分割的？食堂、盥洗和更衣空间以及厕所设施的提供如何反映工作场所的地位划分？角色和地位的不同是如何通过服饰和称呼等习俗来体现的？员工在应对这些做法时表现出了什么样的韧性（如果有的话）？公司记录，包括工作委员会的会议记录，将用于审查这些工作场所结构是如何受到挑战和测试的。休闲空间钢铁公司在员工的体育和休闲设施方面投入了大量资金，但这些投资带来了什么？公司产生的宣传代表钢厂体育和社会俱乐部作为良好的支持机构，培养工作场所的身份和公司的忠诚度。如果使用口头证据和内部会议记录，这幅图片的准确性将受到质疑。是什么促使钢铁公司投资这些设施？钢铁工人是喜欢公司的社交生活，还是家庭或社区社交俱乐部更有吸引力？4.家庭空间1945年后的几年里，工人身份的变化和家庭（超过俱乐部或工作机构）作为钢铁工人在工作时间之外占据的主要空间的重要性日益增加，导致钢铁公司试图将其影响力扩展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：公司使用了什么措施来与员工的家庭和社会世界联系？工人和他们的家人如何回应这种公司在他们家的世界？通过调查钢铁的社会世界，这项研究旨在改变我们对钢铁行业在过去所扮演角色的理解方式，远离更占主导地位的经济观点，这些观点很少将人和地方置于中心舞台。通过一系列针对公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提供新的思考，并让钢铁社区的居民，无论是过去还是现在，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.