CfP: Wartime work (19th-20th century): Working in war and post-war context
The industrialization has profoundly transformed the world of labor and the nature of war. Wars themselves have become industrialized and have gradually increased in scale since the mid-nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) were the first conflicts involving mechanized armies: more powerful gunboats, larger caliber artillery pieces and more efficient locomotives were all industrial products that made this change in scale possible.
Against this backdrop of industrialization of societies, economies and conflicts, we need to understand how wars disrupted the world of labor. The workers’ mobilization has always been central in the historiography of contemporary conflicts, especially of the First and the Second World War. Over the last few decades, the historiography has moved away from the simple story of mobilization of the industry for the war effort, and since the 1980s and 1990s has given way to a social and political history that pays more attention to trade union movements, work in the rear or in occupied territories, and the societal transformations that followed the conflict.
Under the influence of transnational histories, works on colonial empires and gender studies, new perspectives opened in this field of study. New attention has been paid to actors (female labor, but also racialized workers on the European fronts, the contribution of colonial workers to the global war economy, etc.) and their agency, exploring both individual and collective strategies of behavior and survival. While the study of forced labor has been central to the approach to Nazi and Soviet regimes at war (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), highlights of forced labor in colonial empires have effectively demonstrated links between European front and the French and British colonial empires, thus moving beyond the Western framework (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). This approach could be applied to other spaces and conflicts, as outlined out by work on the American Civil War (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) or the Vietnam War (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010).
Recent historiography also showed that wartime work cannot be reduced to simple outputs of the war economy, or to paid employment alone. Industrial work cannot exist without agricultural work, domestic and reproductive labor, or administrative activities essential to the conduct of modern warfare.
This broad definition of wartime work is even more crucial given that many armies of the late 19th and 20th centuries relied on conscription. The largescale mobilization of the working population, including in armies based on voluntary service, greatly disrupted the workforces of belligerent nations, forcing governments to redistribute men as well as resources.
To better grasp the complexity of relation between labor and war, it is necessary to adopt the most encompassing perspective possible, whether in terms of typology – neither civil wars nor low-intensity wars are excluded from the reflection – or geography. By varying the scales, it will be possible to combine reflections on European, colonial and non-European spaces, as well as to shift the focus between the different spaces of societies at war: front, rear, metropole, colonies, peripheral fronts.
Lastly, this approach aims to be interdisciplinary, drawing on contributions from history – like the social history of war, whose objects of study go beyond the military sphere alone – as well as from economics and political economy. The focus on the ordinary actors of conflicts invites us also to engage with the sociology of labor. Furthermore, since the world of work during conflicts is the subject of innovations designed to include individuals in exceptional statuses, our discussions will include issues studied by legal science to provide a better legal framework to understand their participation in the war effort.
Four questions will be explored during this symposium
Optimizing manpower in wartime
The first theme will examine the allocation of human resources to meet the respective, and potentially competing, needs of the civilian and military spheres. Studying the optimization of “human capital” leads us to consider labor in terms of manpower mobilization, which may involve withdrawing manpower from the conscript army, under specific legal regimes, but can also involve the mobilization of other categories of workers: foreigners, colonials, prisoners, women, etc.
Issues of labor mobilization take on a particular significance outside Europe, where colonial methods are applied, often diverging from the legal frameworks and practices in force in the metropoles.
Work in transitions from peace to war and from war to peace
The second theme will focus on labor in times of transition from peace to war and from war to peace. These pivotal moments, bringing societal reconfigurations, provide an opportunity to question the continuities and transformations of labor in the extraordinary context of war. While post-war reconfiguration of professional sectors has already been explored, an alternative perspective could be even more insightful – asking how world of labor may have been prepared – or not – for war. Thus, the continuity of labor between times of war and peace will be examined. Studies “from below” also enable us to put into perspective any transformations in professional identities brought about by war, whether positively through the reuse of skills and knowledge acquired under in military service, or negatively through the problematic vocational retraining of soldiers, particularly the wounded.
Social mobilization, work and conflict
The third theme will address the impact of war on social mobilization and labor struggles, whether accelerating or neutralizing them. Assessing the role of workers and peasants in revolutionary processes that take the form of civil wars (Russia, Spain) allows us to question the intersection between social mobilization and armed struggle. On the other hand, modern wars, insofar as they mobilize labor on massive scale, prompt diverse attitudes from workers’ organizations, ranging from participation in “sacred unions” to opposition to wars perceived as contrary to workers’ interests. The war’s impact on the cohesion and social mobilization of the working class was an issue that ran through the entire period in focus, with constantly renewed logics. Additionally, we will be looking at the repression of social movements during armed conflicts.
Gender and work during conflict
The fourth theme will explore the wars’ impact on gender norms in the workplace. Often presented as moments of feminization of the workforce to “replace” men away at the front, wars also reinforced gender stereotypes in the workplace. While the absence of men gave women access to new types of employment, new professional spaces and new activities, they often had to give them up in the post-war period. Furthermore, during these conflicts women continued work in traditionally feminine spheres, and even reinforced certain social imaginaries linked to women’s work. Looking at the reconfiguration of the world of labor, this workshop aims to highlight the new forms of masculinity and femininity created by armed conflict, as well as the new realities of women’s work in wartime.
Participation
The symposium will take place on November 27 and 28, 2025 at the University of Tours. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the organization.
Papers of up to 50,000 characters (with spaces and including footnotes) will be pre-circulated in early November 2025, aiming at their subsequent submission to a peer-reviewed journal as part of a Special Issue.
Applicants are invited to send an abstract of their paper (max. 1,000 characters) accompanied by a two-pages CV by Monday, March 31, 2025, to the following address: accoulon@univ-tours.fr
All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by the end of June 2025 at the latest.
Suggested bibliography
Bieber Hans-Joachim, Gewerkschaften in Krieg und Revolution: Arbeiterbewegung, Industrie, Staat und Militär in Deutschland: 1914-1920, Hamburg, Christians, 1981, 1248 p.
Bonwetsch Bernd, « Sowjetische Zwangsarbeiter vor und nach 1945: Ein doppelter Leidensweg », Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 1993, vol. 41, no 4, p. 532‑546.
Culleton Claire A., Working Class Culture, Women, and Britain, 1914-1921, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000, 221 p.
Daniel Ute, The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War, Oxford, Berg (coll. « The Legacy of the Great War »), 1997, 343 p.
Fauroux Camille, Produire la guerre, produire le genre : des Françaises au travail dans l’Allemagne nationale-socialiste (1940-1945), Paris, Éditions EHESS, 2020, 310 p.
Feldman Gerald, Army, Industry and Labour in Germany, 1914-1918, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014 [1966], 586 p.
Foner Philip Sheldon, U.S. Labor and the Viet-Nam War, New York, International Publishers, 1989, 180 p.
Haimson Leopold H. et Tilly Charles (eds.), Strikes, Wars and Revolutions in an International Perspective: Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 536 p.
Horne John, « Labor and Labor Movements in World War I » dans Jay M. Winter, Geoffrey Parker et Mary R. Habeck (eds.), The Great War and the Twentieth Century, New Haven, CT, Yale University, 2000, p. 187‑228.
Lause Mark A., Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2015, 296 p.
Marcobelli Elisa, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists, Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2021.
Peschanski Denis et Robert Jean-Louis (eds.), Les ouvriers en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : actes du colloque, Paris-CNRS, 22-24 octobre 1992, Paris, Institut d’histoire du temps présent, 1992, 511 p.
Plato Alexander von, Leh Almut et Thonfeld Christoph (eds.), Hitler’s Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-Occupied Europe, New York, Berghahn Books, 2010, 552 p.
Procacci Giovanna (ed.), State e classe operaia in Italia durante la prima guerra mondiale, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1983, 340 p.
Robert Jean-Louis (ed.), Le syndicalisme à l’épreuve de la Première Guerre mondiale, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 392 p.
Sears John Bennett, « Peace Work: The Antiwar Tradition in American Labor from the Cold War to the Iraq War », Diplomatic History, 2010, vol. 34, no 4, p. 699‑720.
Stanziani Alessandro, Les métamorphoses du travail contraint : une histoire globale (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles), Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2020, 328 p.
Tiquet Romain, Travail forcé et mobilisation de la main-d’œuvre au Sénégal (Années 1920 – 1960), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019, 282 p.
Westerhoff Christian, Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg: deutsche Arbeitskräftepolitik im besetzten Polen und Litauen 1914-1918, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, 377 p.
Xu Guo Qi, Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2011, 366 p.
Scientific committee
Jérôme Bocquet (Université de Tours)
Emmanuelle Cronier (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
John Horne (Trinity College Dublin)
Julie Le Gac (Université Paris Nanterre)
Elisa Marcobelli (Université de Rouen Normandie)
Stéphanie Sauget (Université de Tours)
Xavier Vigna (Université Paris Nanterre)
Wartime work (19th-20th century): Working in war and post-war context, in: H-Soz-Kult, 06.03.2025,
https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-153682.