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Dissertation Information for Melinda Lindsey Murtaugh

NAME:
- Melinda Lindsey Murtaugh

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1983)

ADVISORS:
- Kermit E. McKenzie

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Kathryn E Amdur
- Rondo Cameron

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: ITALIAN LABOR N PROTEST, 1904-1914: GENERAL STRIKES AGAINST 'ECCIDI'

Abstract: "Italian Labor in Protest, 1904-1914," is about slaughters and strikes in Giolittian Italy. As perceived by the proletariat, the slaughters--eccidi in Italian--were battles in the class war, in which the state's use of armed violence to protect and preserve the established order cost working-class lives. The strikes were political general strikes to register popular protest against the violence and against the impunity with which the government permitted its agents to act.

Never predictable responses to eccidi, general strikes were dramatic and increasingly frequently used means by which "real Italy" exhibited its disaffection from "legal Italy." Discernible grass roots pressure for fundamental modification of the relationship between people and police was behind much of the class-warfare rhetoric that accompanied the Italian proletariat's use of its own distinctive combination of working-class weaponry (the strike) and citizens' weaponry (the revolutionary giornata) to press for civil rights reform.

Chapter I describes the historical and international context out of which extremely confused conceptions of the general strike had developed by the early 1900s. At least in theory, the general strike could achieve everything from an eight-hour working day to revolution. Chapter II describes the waxing and waning but nevertheless endurable attractiveness of the general strike in turn-of-the-century Italy, where socialists, syndicalists, and anarchists all made significant contributions to both theory and practice. Chapters III through VI describes the strikes in detail. Those chapters also illuminate aspects of a liberalizing society, an expanding economy, an advancing proletariat, and a seriously, tragically divided working-class movement. Uncertain of the thrust toward reform, incapable of the thrust toward revolution, Italian labor vacillated between the two and eventually lost its way.

MPACT Scores for Melinda Lindsey Murtaugh

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calculated 2008-06-03 10:02:42

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Students under Melinda Lindsey Murtaugh

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None