The Saga of History 492: the Transformation of Working-Class History in One Classroom‪.‬

JOURNALS, CONFERENCE PANELS, and on-line newsgroups are filled these days with talk of a crisis (or backlash or decline) in labour and working-class history. (1) This loss of confidence is sometimes linked to the rise of new theories or forms of analysis such as critical race theory, gender analysis, or postmodernism; or to the decline of Communism, Marxist theory, or the organized labour movement. Such scholarly discussions are worthy and can tell us a lot about the writing of working-class history, but we wonder what is going on in labour history classrooms amidst this crisis? How has the teaching of working-class history changed over the past two decades? What are we trying to do in our courses on working-class history? What does this tell us about who "labour historians" are, what they do, and why anyone else should pay attention? We offer "the saga of History 492" not as a firm answer to these questions, but rather as an effort to open a more self-conscious discussion of the relationship between the re-conceptualization and rewriting of working-class history and the ways in which the teaching of the subject has changed over the years. Looking at the question of teaching might even tell us something about where we are headed.