Notes

How useful is this source to an historian studying 60's society?

This source is very useful as it demonstrates the issues facing the 60's society- equal pay and discrimination against women in the work place. The Dagenham strike occurred when women sewing machinists walked out when they were told their skilled job of making car seat covers were graded in category B instead of category C. Additionally, they were told they would be paid 15% less than the full B categorised men. This is useful as it illustrates the massive gap between men and women in 60s society, as both men and women were doing the same job but women only got '87% of the unskilled male rate.' The source is from the account of Sheila Douglas, Bernie Jones and Violet Dawson whom were involved in the strike. This is useful as they gave their own opinions and experiences. This would be useful to a historian as it gives their true perspective of the time as Violet said 'we wanted a C grade, we wanted equal pay' demonstrating their agenda.

In 1968 the Dagenham strike occurred. This date is useful as in this time the government were doing massive reforms to society. In 1967 the Abortion Act was established and then the Sexual Offences Act additionally in 1967. This transformation in society catalysed the women's thoughts as they wanted a reform too, especially in pay. The women in the source have a shocked undertone as they say 'we didn’t think we were that strong' and ' we didn’t think we could bring ford to a standstill.' This is useful as it shows that the women were not expecting their voice to be heard so strongly. Which implies that men dominated 60's society. The strike had huge impacts as 'Barbara Castle had to intervene' and came up with a negotiation with the women after only 3 weeks of striking. This shows to an historian how powerful the women were as the secretary of state was vulnerable. In 1968 there were approximately 4.69 million days lost to strikes. Therefore, this shows that workers were not happy with the ways things were run in the 1960 as they demanded change. As a result of Dagenham strike the government increased their rate of pay by 8% below that of men, rising to the full category B rate the next year. This helped the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. This act said that women and men should have equal pay and working conditions. However, the source has some limitations as it is an interview. The women may have exaggerated the situation and fabricated the events in favour of their ideas. They do not account for all women, we do not know what the majority of women in the work place.

The tsarist regime was not successful in restoring economic stability to Russia between April/May 1906 and the outbreak of war in 1914. Assess the validity of this view.

Russia advanced massively from 1906 economically making huge improvements but they were held back by their competitors. Thus, Russia was fairly economically stable by this period however there was some social instability. Russia was reasonably economically stable by 1914 as their annual growth rate increased by 6% which was very good because it surpassed any growth rate in the west. Russia additionally doubled their output in 1860-80 and production in 1892-1900. This was a huge achievement in restoring economic stability because it helped reduce their debt and begin towards looking for a surplus. In fact Russia's national debt dropped from 9million to 8 million. Additionally, Russia's achievement in moderate economic stability was due to the successful finance minister, Witte. His proposal of using protective tariffs enabled Russia to have a more generous market for their industry as the more economically stable Russia were the more secure the rouble was. This increased foreign investment.

However, Russia wasn’t completely economically stable as they were still behind Western Europe massively. Despite the improvement of the increase of foreign investment in 1913, Britain were acquiring £1223million and Germany £1030million from investment whereas Russia was only receiving 190m. Between 1894-1913 Russia's national income was 50% but Italy's was 144%, illustrating that despite their improvements they still lacked compared to their rivals. Although, there was some social stability as the industrial wage rose only by 19 roubles, from 245 to 264 roubles per month. This was a failure in stability as inflation caused prices to rise by 40% in this period. Moreover, from 1912-1914 there was around 3 million workers involved in strike activity, especially in 1912 there was huge strikes over the massacre of 500 miners from Lena Gold Fields which catalysed these strikes. Lastly, around 4/5 of the population were peasantry still which meant there was not any significant industrial development. This was not that significant as literacy rates did actually rise by 30% in 1900 to 40% in 1914. This was mainly due to Stolypin's increased spending on elementary schools, as there was an increase of 77% growth of pupils and 85% in schools from 1905-14.

In conclusion, the Tsar had mostly restored economic stability as by 1914 he increased investment spent from inside Russia. Moreover, Russia spent more state money on industry after 1905. Which helped them develop in the world rankings despite some economic weakness with investment and income. They were 2nd in the world rankings for oil, and the overall size of industry was 5th. This shows that Russia were dominating within the world and improved massively.