{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/77977"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/77977","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"We'll Help Ourselves: The English Working-Class Struggle to Remake Itself, ca. 1968-1985","abstract":"Ph.D.","abstract_html":"Ph.D.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Marsland, John; 0000-0002-8947-8099"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["McDevitt, Patrick","History"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-06-28T20:32:07Z","date_published":"2018-06-28T20:32:07Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:05Z","subjects":["modern history","European history"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/77977","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["McDevitt, Patrick","History"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Marsland, John; 0000-0002-8947-8099"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2018-06-28T20:32:07Z","2018","2018-05-03 17:30:46"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["modern history","European history"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/77977"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Ph.D.","“We’ll Help Ourselves: The English Working-Class Struggle to Remake Itself, 1968-1985” analyzes the changing nature of working-class activism in the United Kingdom in the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that the British working class responded to the changing nature of capitalism in new but recognizably working-class ways, remaking in the process the political stakes of the working class as well as scholars’ understanding of class in Britain. In four chapters, I examine responses to four crises in British society. Chapter one analyzes the squatter movement that formed in 1968 in response to a burgeoning housing crisis, and eventually grew into a movement that sought to enshrine a right of free housing for all. Chapter two examines the claimants’ union movement, a union of welfare state beneficiaries advocating for more generosity and easier access to the system. Both the squatters and the claimants—who were often the same people and mostly, but not exclusively white men—worked together for an eventual worker-controlled communist society. Women and racial minorities continued to face problems derived from their socially and economically subordinate positions in post-war Britain. Chapter three focuses on the Women’s Aid Federation, which provided refuges for abused women while at the same time advocating for a minimum income for women that was adequate to reduce their dependence on men. Chapter four analyzes the evolving and multifaceted movements of West Indian immigrants and native-born black Britons to fight racism and develop a political consciousness. Each of the groups I analyze struggled on two fronts: the first to secure access to particular resources, and the second to challenge the wider social constructions that prevented their access in the first place. My dissertation contributes to the historiography of class by arguing that the context of late-capitalism produced crises for the working class of similar magnitude to those that early industrialism had inflicted on earlier workers. Just as the earlier crises marked the “making” of the working class, these later crises necessitated the “remaking” of it."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["We'll Help Ourselves: The English Working-Class Struggle to Remake Itself, ca. 1968-1985"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["McDevitt, Patrick","History"],"dc:creator":["Marsland, John; 0000-0002-8947-8099"],"dc:date":["2018-06-28T20:32:07Z","2018","2018-05-03 17:30:46"],"dc:description":["Ph.D.","“We’ll Help Ourselves: The English Working-Class Struggle to Remake Itself, 1968-1985” analyzes the changing nature of working-class activism in the United Kingdom in the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that the British working class responded to the changing nature of capitalism in new but recognizably working-class ways, remaking in the process the political stakes of the working class as well as scholars’ understanding of class in Britain. In four chapters, I examine responses to four crises in British society. Chapter one analyzes the squatter movement that formed in 1968 in response to a burgeoning housing crisis, and eventually grew into a movement that sought to enshrine a right of free housing for all. Chapter two examines the claimants’ union movement, a union of welfare state beneficiaries advocating for more generosity and easier access to the system. Both the squatters and the claimants—who were often the same people and mostly, but not exclusively white men—worked together for an eventual worker-controlled communist society. Women and racial minorities continued to face problems derived from their socially and economically subordinate positions in post-war Britain. Chapter three focuses on the Women’s Aid Federation, which provided refuges for abused women while at the same time advocating for a minimum income for women that was adequate to reduce their dependence on men. Chapter four analyzes the evolving and multifaceted movements of West Indian immigrants and native-born black Britons to fight racism and develop a political consciousness. Each of the groups I analyze struggled on two fronts: the first to secure access to particular resources, and the second to challenge the wider social constructions that prevented their access in the first place. My dissertation contributes to the historiography of class by arguing that the context of late-capitalism produced crises for the working class of similar magnitude to those that early industrialism had inflicted on earlier workers. Just as the earlier crises marked the “making” of the working class, these later crises necessitated the “remaking” of it."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/77977"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["modern history","European history"],"dc:title":["We'll Help Ourselves: The English Working-Class Struggle to Remake Itself, ca. 1968-1985"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:05Z"}