Generational, Biographical and Life-Course Approaches to the History of the German Labour Movement in the Nineteenth Century*

Abstract

Abstract While generational and biographical approaches are well-established methods in historical scholarship, life-course approaches are less prominent. This article seeks to bridge that gap by applying all these methods to an examination of the early membership of the German labour movement in the 1860s and 1870s. It considers whether we can interpret the rise of the labour movement in the nineteenth century as a generational phenomenon and explain it in light of (work) experiences that were life-phase specific. We see that while life-course experiences were more decisive than generational factors for the making of the movement, the retrospective identification of a founding generation was significant for the creation of the identity of a united labour movement in the years of the Kaiserreich.