Friendship and Domestic Service: the letters of Eliza Oldham,general maid (c.1820–1892)

Eliza Oldham (c.1820–92) worked as a general maid in Rochdale and Halifax from the 1840s to the 1870s. A set of her letters to a wealthy relation of two of her employers, Helen Priestman Bright Clark (1840–1927), has been preserved, indicating their close friendship. This article asks what kind of friendship was possible in such a socially and economically unequal relationship, and what it might tell us about class identities and class contest. It locates the basis of this friendship in the emotional labour involved in domestic service, alongside the complex intersection of work, family and community life with larger arenas of radical and gender politics.     

Sisters,not demons: the influence of british suffragists on the American suffrage movement

British suffragettes were an important, if controversial, influence on the American suffrage movement, for the successful achievement of the franchise in 1920 was helped by the adoption of the suffragettes' militant tactics in the final stage of the campaign. When Harriot Stanton Blatch returned to the USA in 1902 after living for twenty years in England, she found that the suffrage movement her mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had helped to found was stagnant. Blatch energized the movement in New York City by recruiting working-class women and organizing colorful parades and other dramatic events, strategies she had learned from Emmeline Pankhurst. Blatch arranged a successful tour of the USA for Pankhurst in 1909.     

Meaning or Measurement? Researching the Social Contexts of Health and Settlement among Newly-arrived Refugee Youth in Melbourne, Australia

What are the most appropriate methodological approaches forresearching the psychosocial determinants of health and wellbeingamong young people from refugee backgrounds over the resettlementperiod? What kinds of research models can involve young peoplein meaningful reflections on their lives and futures while simultaneouslyyielding valid data to inform services and policy? This paperreports on the methods developed for a longitudinal study ofhealth and wellbeing among young people from refugee backgroundsin Melbourne, Australia. The study involves 100 newly-arrivedyoung people 12 to 18 years of age, and employs a combinationof qualitative and quantitative methods implemented as a seriesof activities carried out by participants in personalized settlementjournals. This paper highlights the need to think outside thebox of traditional qualitative and/or quantitative approachesfor social research into refugee youth health and illustrateshow integrated approaches can produce information that is meaningfulto policy makers, service providers and to the young peoplethemselves.