Carolyn Steedman is a historian focusing on the lives of the English working class and labor relations within the Industrial Age. Her work delves into the everyday experiences and intricate dynamics between masters and servants that shaped modern England. Steedman's analysis probes the depths of social structures, revealing subtle nuances in human interactions within the spheres of labor and domesticity. She brings a sharp, insightful lens to historical research, uncovering the less obvious narratives and lived realities of the past.
Focusing on everyday legal experiences, from that of magistrates, novelists and political philosophers, to maidservants, pauper men and women, down-at- heel attorneys and middling-sort wives, History and the Law reveals how people thought about, used, manipulated and resisted the law between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries.
Dust is a witty and highly original investigation into the development of modern history writing. This book considers how history writing belongs to the currents of thought shaping the modern world, and suggests that, like dust, the 'matter of history' can never go away or be erased. -- .
Carolyn Steedman's childhood in 1950s South London was profoundly influenced by her mother's yearning for tangible realities that society denied her. This longing led her mother to blame the world for her unfulfilled desires. As Steedman matures, she seeks to find reflections of her and her mother's experiences in history, theory, and literature. She discovers that the tradition of cultural criticism often overlooks the psychological individuality of working-class lives, reducing them to mere illustrations of broader theses. Through a detailed examination of personal experiences alongside political and social science theories regarding the psychology of working-class individuals, Steedman critiques an intellectual tradition that fails to acknowledge unique personal histories. In this poignant and well-researched work, she challenges the notion that the survival struggles of working-class people leave no room for deeper relational explorations, revealing instead the richness of their lives. This exploration is filled with affirming insights that celebrate the complexity and depth of working-class experiences.