'No need...To think of home'? Masculinity and domestic life on the Nigerian Railway, c. 1940-61

Journal of African History

Volumn 39, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 439-466

  Lindsay, Lisa A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GENDER ROLE; LABOR RELATIONS; RAILWAY TRANSPORT; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

NIGERIA;

EID: 0032455384     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853798007312     Document Type: Article

References (151)

1. Interview: Ayo Salako, 15 Feb. 1994, Ibadan, and other informal conversations.
2. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
3. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
4. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
5. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
6. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
7. D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, 'Introduction: towards the New Order, 1945-1963', in D. A. Low and Alison Smith (eds.), History of East Africa (3 vols.) (Oxford, 1976), iii; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), and Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the City: Migrant Labor, Capital, and the State in Urban Africa (Beverly Hills, 1983). For late colonial attempts to reshape African domestic lives, see Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992); and Nancy Rose Hunt, '"Le bébé en brousse": European women, African birth spacing and colonial intervention in breast feeding in the Belgian Congo', Int. J.Afr. Hist. Studies, XXI (1988), 401-32.
8. Some examples are T. Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994); Jane L. Parpart, 'The household and the mine shaft: gender and class struggles on the Zambian copperbelt, 1926-64', J. Southern Afr. Studies, XIII (1986), 36-56, and '"Where is your mother?": gender, urban marriage, and colonial discourse on the Zambian copperbelt, 1924-1945', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVII (1994), 241-71;
9. Some examples are T. Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994); Jane L. Parpart, 'The household and the mine shaft: gender and class struggles on the Zambian copperbelt, 1926-64', J. Southern Afr. Studies, XIII (1986), 36-56, and '"Where is your mother?": gender, urban marriage, and colonial discourse on the Zambian copperbelt, 1924-1945', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVII (1994), 241-71;
10. Some examples are T. Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994); Jane L. Parpart, 'The household and the mine shaft: gender and class struggles on the Zambian copperbelt, 1926-64', J. Southern Afr. Studies, XIII (1986), 36-56, and '"Where is your mother?": gender, urban marriage, and colonial discourse on the Zambian copperbelt, 1924-1945', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVII (1994), 241-71;
11. Timothy Scarnecchia, 'The politics of gender and class in the creation of African communities, Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1937-1957', (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1994); White, Comforts and 'Separating the men from the boys: constructions of gender, sexuality and terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939-1959', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXIII (1990), 1-25.
12. Timothy Scarnecchia, 'The politics of gender and class in the creation of African communities, Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1937-1957', (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1994); White, Comforts and 'Separating the men from the boys: constructions of gender, sexuality and terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939-1959', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXIII (1990), 1-25.
13. Nancy Rose Hunt, 'Introduction' to special issue on Gendered Colonialisms in African History, Gender and History, VIII (1996), 323-37.
14. See Lisa A. Lindsay, 'Putting the family on track: gender and domestic life on the colonial Nigerian railway', (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1996).
15. Wale Oyemakinde, 'Railway construction and operation in Nigeria, 1895-1911: labour problems and socio-economic impact', J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, VII (1974), 303-24.
16. G. St. J. Orde Browne, Labour Conditions in West Africa (London, 1941), 79; Nigeria, Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial year Ending 31st March 1939 (Lagos, 1940), 49.
17. G. St. J. Orde Browne, Labour Conditions in West Africa (London, 1941), 79; Nigeria, Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial year Ending 31st March 1939 (Lagos, 1940), 49.
18. Nigeria, Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial Year 1943-44 (Lagos, 1944), 58; and Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial Year 1952-53 (Lagos, 1953), 36.
19. Nigeria, Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial Year 1943-44 (Lagos, 1944), 58; and Annual Report on the Government Railway for the Financial Year 1952-53 (Lagos, 1953), 36.
20. Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31st March 1965 (Lagos, 1965), 35. There were approximately 565,000 Nigerian wage earners in 1965 according to Tayo Fashoyin, Industrial Relations in Nigeria (London, 1980), 13.
21. Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31st March 1965 (Lagos, 1965), 35. There were approximately 565,000 Nigerian wage earners in 1965 according to Tayo Fashoyin, Industrial Relations in Nigeria (London, 1980), 13.
22. Nigeria, Department of Statistics, Population Census of Lagos, 1950 (Kaduna, 1950), 83-4.
23. Oyemakinde, 'Railway construction'; J. O. Oyemakinde, 'A history of indigenous labour on the Nigerian railway, 1895-1945' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Ibadan, 1970); G. A. Oldfield, 'The native railway worker in Nigeria', Africa, IX (1936), 379-402.
24. Oyemakinde, 'Railway construction'; J. O. Oyemakinde, 'A history of indigenous labour on the Nigerian railway, 1895-1945' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Ibadan, 1970); G. A. Oldfield, 'The native railway worker in Nigeria', Africa, IX (1936), 379-402.
25. N. A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba, edited by Francis Olu. Okediji and Oladejo O. Okediji (Ibadan, 1970 [1940]), 91-2; Oyemakinde, 'Railway construction'.
26. N. A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba, edited by Francis Olu. Okediji and Oladejo O. Okediji (Ibadan, 1970 [1940]), 91-2; Oyemakinde, 'Railway construction'.
27. Akin Mabogunje, Urbanization in Nigeria (London, 1968).
28. James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), 257, gives the figure for wage-earners as 4 per cent of the adult male population in 1946.
29. R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, 1995).
30. Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne, 'Dislocating masculinity: gender, power and anthropology', in Cornwall and Lindisfarne (eds.), Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies (London, 1994), 4.
31. For a comparable argument, see S. F. Miescher, 'Becoming a man in Kwawu: gender, law, and the construction of masculinities in colonial Ghana, 1875-1957' (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1997).
32. For a similar argument in a different setting, see Ava Baron, 'Questions of gender: deskilling and demasculinization in the U.S. printing industry, 1830-1915', Gender and History, 1 (1989), 178-99; and Cynthia Cockburn, 'Introduction' to Forum on Formations of Masculinity in the same issue, 159-63.
33. For a similar argument in a different setting, see Ava Baron, 'Questions of gender: deskilling and demasculinization in the U.S. printing industry, 1830-1915', Gender and History, 1 (1989), 178-99; and Cynthia Cockburn, 'Introduction' to Forum on Formations of Masculinity in the same issue, 159-63.
34. Interview: Ayo Salako, 15 Feb. 1994, Ibadan.
35. Oldfield, 'Native railway worker'. Of the 167 railway retirees that Babajide Oyeneye, Olafunmilayo Carew, Olusanya Ibitoye, and I surveyed in Lagos and Ibadan in 1993-4, 84.4 per cent identified themselves as Yoruba. Participants were located through the Lagos and Ibadan branches of the Nigerian Union of Railway Pensioners as well as personal referrals. They were asked a series of questions about their work and family histories; 53 of their wives also took part. For more information on the survey, see Lindsay, 'Putting the family'.
36. Based on a random sample of 434 personnel files from retired, terminated and dead railway workers from the western region of Nigeria located in the pension offices of the Ebute Metta (Lagos) headquarters and the Ibadan regional hub of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Ethnic designations were either listed in the files or surmised on the basis of the employees' names.
37. T. M. Yesufu, 'Problems of industrial relations in Nigeria, with special reference to the administration of workmen's compensation' (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1960), 186.
38. Karin Barber, I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women, and the Past in a Yoruba Town (Edinburgh, 1991), 48 and 155.
39. William Bascom, The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria (New York, 1969), 56. On labor and adult masculinity see Barber, I Could Speak, 214-6.
40. On labor and adult masculinity see Barber, I Could Speak, 214-6.
41. Barber, I Could Speak, 216. Also see J. D. Y. Peel, Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1990s-1970s (Cambridge, 1983), 119.
42. Barber, I Could Speak, 216. Also see J. D. Y. Peel, Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1990s-1970s (Cambridge, 1983), 119.
43. Jane I. Guyer, 'Lineal identities and lateral networks: the logic of polyandrous motherhood', in Caroline Bledsoe and Gilles Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Contemporary Anthropological and Demographic Perspectives (Oxford, 1994).
44. Edward Ward, The Yoruba Husband-Wife Code, Catholic University of America Anthropology Series, no. 6 (Washington, D. C., 1938), 64; R. Galletti, K. D. S. Baldwin, and I. O. Dina, Nigerian Cocoa Farmers: An Economic Survey of Yoruba Cocoa Farming Families (Oxford, 1956), 214 and 265.
45. Edward Ward, The Yoruba Husband-Wife Code, Catholic University of America Anthropology Series, no. 6 (Washington, D. C., 1938), 64; R. Galletti, K. D. S. Baldwin, and I. O. Dina, Nigerian Cocoa Farmers: An Economic Survey of Yoruba Cocoa Farming Families (Oxford, 1956), 214 and 265.
46. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; Barber, I Could Speak, 217.
47. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; Barber, I Could Speak, 217.
48. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; see also Barber, I Could Speak, ch. 6. Analogous situations existed throughout colonial Africa. See, for example, William Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland, 1860-1930 (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 3, and White, Comforts, ch. 2.
49. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; see also Barber, I Could Speak, ch. 6. Analogous situations existed throughout colonial Africa. See, for example, William Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland, 1860-1930 (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 3, and White, Comforts, ch. 2.
50. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; see also Barber, I Could Speak, ch. 6. Analogous situations existed throughout colonial Africa. See, for example, William Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland, 1860-1930 (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 3, and White, Comforts, ch. 2.
51. Peel, Ijeshas, 118-9; see also Barber, I Could Speak, ch. 6. Analogous situations existed throughout colonial Africa. See, for example, William Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland, 1860-1930 (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 3, and White, Comforts, ch. 2.
52. Galletti, et al. Nigerian Cocoa Farmers; Sara S. Berry, Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria (Oxford, 1975).
53. Galletti, et al. Nigerian Cocoa Farmers; Sara S. Berry, Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria (Oxford, 1975).
54. Interview: Francis Soetan, 12 Apr. 1994, Ibadan.
55. This is based on information from Bere Native Court (Ibadan) divorce records held in the Obafemi Awolowo University library, Ife.
56. Interview: M. O. Adegbite, 28 Dec. 1993, Ibadan.
57. Barber, I Could Speak, 218.
58. Ibid, ch. 6.
59. J. S. Eades, The Yoruba Today (Cambridge, 1980), 105; Sara Berry, Fathers Work for their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility, and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community (Berkeley, 1985), ch. 3; P. C. Lloyd, 'The elite', in P. C. Lloyd et al. (eds.), The City of Ibadan (Cambridge, 1967).
60. J. S. Eades, The Yoruba Today (Cambridge, 1980), 105; Sara Berry, Fathers Work for their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility, and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community (Berkeley, 1985), ch. 3; P. C. Lloyd, 'The elite', in P. C. Lloyd et al. (eds.), The City of Ibadan (Cambridge, 1967).
61. J. S. Eades, The Yoruba Today (Cambridge, 1980), 105; Sara Berry, Fathers Work for their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility, and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community (Berkeley, 1985), ch. 3; P. C. Lloyd, 'The elite', in P. C. Lloyd et al. (eds.), The City of Ibadan (Cambridge, 1967).
62. Fadipe, Sociology, 88; Eleanor R. Fapohunda, 'The non-pooling household: a challenge to theory', in Daisy Dwyer and Judith Bruce (eds.), A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World (Stanford, 1988); Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Evanston, 1962), ch. 4; Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, 1973).
63. Fadipe, Sociology, 88; Eleanor R. Fapohunda, 'The non-pooling household: a challenge to theory', in Daisy Dwyer and Judith Bruce (eds.), A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World (Stanford, 1988); Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Evanston, 1962), ch. 4; Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, 1973).
64. Fadipe, Sociology, 88; Eleanor R. Fapohunda, 'The non-pooling household: a challenge to theory', in Daisy Dwyer and Judith Bruce (eds.), A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World (Stanford, 1988); Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Evanston, 1962), ch. 4; Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, 1973).
65. Fadipe, Sociology, 88; Eleanor R. Fapohunda, 'The non-pooling household: a challenge to theory', in Daisy Dwyer and Judith Bruce (eds.), A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World (Stanford, 1988); Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Evanston, 1962), ch. 4; Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, 1973).
66. Interview: Florence Owolabi (market trader and wife of railway pensioner), 7 Jan. 1994, Ibadan.
67. Galletti et al., Nigerian Cocoa Farmers, 77.
68. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, ch. 6.
69. Berry, Fathers Work, ch. 3;
70. Fadipe, Sociology, 165 and 305; Jane Mason Guyer, 'The organizational plan of traditional farming: Idere, Western Nigeria' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Rochester, 1972);
71. Fadipe, Sociology, 165 and 305; Jane Mason Guyer, 'The organizational plan of traditional farming: Idere, Western Nigeria' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Rochester, 1972);
72. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 128-9;
73. Ward, Yoruba Husband-Wife, ch. 2.
74. Based on my examination of divorce records from Bere Native Court, Ibadan. See also Nigeria, Annual Report of the Federal Social Welfare Department for the Year 1955-56, (Lagos, 1956), 10. Men rarely sued for divorce.
75. This is evidenced, for instance, by letters to the West African Pilot's women's column, 'Milady's Bower', by Miss Silva. Examples are: 'She prefers an ex-soldier to a news vendor', 23 Mar. 1946; 'Girls and presents', 12 Apr. 1946, See also 'The housewife's economy' (editorial), 11 Feb. 1947.
76. Interview: Rebecca Uchefuna, 21 Feb. 1994, Ibadan.
77. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4. In 1963 P. C. Lloyd reported a divorce rate of 3 per cent per year in 'The status of the Yoruba wife', Sudan Society, 11 (1963), 35-42, 37. See also Guyer, 'Lineal identities', where she noted that less than half of older men had sustained stable marriages.
78. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4. In 1963 P. C. Lloyd reported a divorce rate of 3 per cent per year in 'The status of the Yoruba wife', Sudan Society, 11 (1963), 35-42, 37. See also Guyer, 'Lineal identities', where she noted that less than half of older men had sustained stable marriages.
79. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4. In 1963 P. C. Lloyd reported a divorce rate of 3 per cent per year in 'The status of the Yoruba wife', Sudan Society, 11 (1963), 35-42, 37. See also Guyer, 'Lineal identities', where she noted that less than half of older men had sustained stable marriages.
80. See LaRay Denzer, 'Yoruba women: a historiographical study', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVII (1994), 1-39, 18.
81. This point is further substantiated by the current instability in many railway employees' and pensioners' marriages. The NRC's financial problems have led to worker layoffs, deferred payments of salaries, and suspensions of pension disbursements. Retired railwaymen have been left with hardly any income, forced to rely upon their wives' continued trade for survival. Wives, eager to retire in their advanced years, resent their husbands and insult their masculinity. According to the press, they are divorcing pensioners and currently employed railwaymen in droves. Ademola Adeyanju, Peter Ajayi Dada and Idowu Adelusi, 'Non-payment of salaries: divorce rate soars in railways', Nigerian Tribune, 30 May 1993;
82. interview: Ruth Adekanola (wife of railway pensioner), 17 Feb. 1994, Ibadan.
83. Interview: S. O. Akintola, 2 May 1994, Ibadan.
84. 'The excuses of harragin for refusing Africans marriage allowance', West African Pilot (hereafter WAP), 11 Dec. 1946. The correspondent was rebutting the argument that African men were unsuited for family allowances because they were polygamous.
85. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4; Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985). Monogamous marriage did not, however, preclude 'outside' relationships. See Wambui Wa Karanga, '"Outside wives" and "Inside wives" in Nigeria: a study of changing perceptions in marriage', in David Parkin and David Nyamwaya (eds.), Transformations of African Marriage (Manchester, 1987); and Kristin Mann, 'The historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial Lagos', in Bledsoe and Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 117.
86. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4; Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985). Monogamous marriage did not, however, preclude 'outside' relationships. See Wambui Wa Karanga, '"Outside wives" and "Inside wives" in Nigeria: a study of changing perceptions in marriage', in David Parkin and David Nyamwaya (eds.), Transformations of African Marriage (Manchester, 1987); and Kristin Mann, 'The historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial Lagos', in Bledsoe and Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 117.
87. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4; Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985). Monogamous marriage did not, however, preclude 'outside' relationships. See Wambui Wa Karanga, '"Outside wives" and "Inside wives" in Nigeria: a study of changing perceptions in marriage', in David Parkin and David Nyamwaya (eds.), Transformations of African Marriage (Manchester, 1987); and Kristin Mann, 'The historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial Lagos', in Bledsoe and Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 117.
88. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4; Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985). Monogamous marriage did not, however, preclude 'outside' relationships. See Wambui Wa Karanga, '"Outside wives" and "Inside wives" in Nigeria: a study of changing perceptions in marriage', in David Parkin and David Nyamwaya (eds.), Transformations of African Marriage (Manchester, 1987); and Kristin Mann, 'The historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial Lagos', in Bledsoe and Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 117.
89. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', ch. 4; Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985). Monogamous marriage did not, however, preclude 'outside' relationships. See Wambui Wa Karanga, '"Outside wives" and "Inside wives" in Nigeria: a study of changing perceptions in marriage', in David Parkin and David Nyamwaya (eds.), Transformations of African Marriage (Manchester, 1987); and Kristin Mann, 'The historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial Lagos', in Bledsoe and Pison (eds.), Nuptiality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work, 117.
90. Interview: Bernard Aruna, 28 Dec. 1993, Ibadan.
91. Ibid.
92. Interviews: 17 Feb. and 12 Apr. 1994, Ibadan. Names have been withheld to protect confidentiality.
93. Nigerail: Journal of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (Dec. 1956), 4, in Edward Charles Ealey papers, MSS.Afr.8.1148, Rhodes House (Oxford).
94. Ibid.
95. Lisa A. Lindsay, 'Domesticity and difference: male breadwinners, working women, and colonial citizenship in the 1945 Nigerian General Strike', (forthcoming).
96. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', 272-3.
97. Based on my random sample of 434 NRC personnel files. See note 21.
98. Personnel file of Abraham Adepoju Falade, WP 6689. (All personnel files beginning with WP may be found in the Ibadan pension office of the NRC.) Frances Jaekel, former Chief Superintendent of the Nigerian Railway, told me that when he was in charge of African locomotive drivers in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they were increasingly reluctant to be transferred, largely because moving would disrupt their children's schooling. Personal communication, 22 July 1994.
99. General Manager's Circular No. 766/SR492, 22 Sept. 1938, in NRC Labour and Welfare Office file GMS 28/47, vol. 1. Henceforth, files located in this office will be designated as NRC/file number.
100. For example, District Superintendent to Jebba Garuba, 23 Sept. 1953 in Jebba Garuba's unnumbered personnel file (Ibadan Pension Office, NRC).
101. 'Improved conditions of service of railway employees', Daily Times (Lagos), 6 Oct. 1941; and General Manager to Heads of Departments, 20 Aug. 1943, NRC/GMS 337/16, vol. 1.
102. 1964 letter in personnel file of Gabriel Popoola, WP 2521.
103. Correspondence in personnel file of Karimu Adekolu, WP 16576. Similarly, Jeremiah Idoma (personnel file WP 17874), a track laborer since 1957, took casual leave for his father's death in both 1973 and 1975!
104. Personnel file of Rufus Adewale Awoboyade, WP 6330.
105. Lindsay, 'Putting the family', 245-8.
106. Kengbe i dan, Esemu ko roju rele ana re, Kengbi i dan. Oyemakinde, 'History', 66. Unfortunately, Oyemakinde does not provide information on the origin of the song or when and where it was sung.
107. See Peel, Ijeshas, especially ch. 9.
108. Orde Browne, 'Labor conditions', 24.
109. Interview: Ayo Salako, 12 Apr. 1994, Ibadan.
110. Nigeria, Annual Report on the Department of Labor for the Year 1957-58 (Lagos, 1958), 53.
111. Also see Adrian J. Peace, Choice, Class and Conflict: A Study of Southern Nigerian Factory Workers (Brighton, 1979), ch. 3, which describes the attempts of migrant workers in Lagos to evade financial responsibilities in their hometowns.
112. Interview: Ayo Salako, 12 Apr. 1994, Ibadan.
113. Onuora Nzekwu, Blade Among the Boys (London, 1972 [1962]), 156.
114. Marris, Family and Social Change, 149, reported that 30 per cent had siblings living with them.
115. Interview: Felix Elue, 8 Apr. 1994, Ibadan.
116. Interview: Bernard Aruna, 28 Dec. 1993, Ibadan.
117. Okojie to Sobowale, 18 Nov. 1966 and other correspondence in Francis Akinlabi's personnel file, WP 9097, emphasis in the original.
118. Reported in 'Station staff gives the sum of £21 to Zik's press fund', WAP, 13 Mar. 1946.
119. Minutes of meeting between Railway Labour Officer, W. A. Powell, and representatives of the Train Guards Union on 19 Nov. 1946, NRC/GM 27, vol. 1. Descriptions of rest houses and cooking facilities in the 1940s and 1950s are in the same file.
120. Walter Licht, Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1983), 235.
121. W. J. Lardner, Stores Superintendent to Traffic Manager, W. H. Best, 30 Dec. 1947, NRC/GM 27, vol. 1.
122. Train Guards Union to General Manager, A. J. F. Bunning, 26 Mar. 1947 and C. B. Mosanya, General Secretary of the Train Guards Union to General Manager, 12 Nov. 1947, NRC/GM 27 vol. 1.
123. 'Annual Report of the Railway Station Staff Union Presented to the Sixth Annual Conference (2)', WAP, 25 Mar. 1946.
124. Acting Traffic Manager to General Manager, 24 Jan. 1947, NRC/GM 27, vol. 1. Woodward became General Manager of the Nigerian Railway later that year.
125. Train Guards Union to General Manager, 26 Mar. 1947 and Acting Traffic Manager to General Manager, 4 Apr. 1947, NRC/GM 27, vol. 1. The latter claim was not exactly true, however, as mentioned above.
126. General Secretary, Train Guards Union to General Manager, D. C. Woodward, 20 Dec. 1951 and Chief Superintendent to Chief Secretary to the Organization, 5 Mar. 1952, NRC/GMS 27, vol. 2.
127. LaRay Denzer, pers. comm. 26 Apr. 1996; Guyer, 'Organizational plan', 82. This was apparently true for men from Eastern Nigeria as well: in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979), 128, the heroine's son protests, 'Why should I help in the cooking? That's a woman's job'. And in a 1961 Lagos court case, an Efik merchant seaman testified that after his wife left him he had to get someone else to do his cooking. Case 643/60, Jeremiah Akpan vs. Isong Akpan Ndeno, March 1961, Ebute Metta Magistrate's Court No. 1, vol.? [torn cover], 65-80.
128. LaRay Denzer, pers. comm. 26 Apr. 1996; Guyer, 'Organizational plan', 82. This was apparently true for men from Eastern Nigeria as well: in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979), 128, the heroine's son protests, 'Why should I help in the cooking? That's a woman's job'. And in a 1961 Lagos court case, an Efik merchant seaman testified that after his wife left him he had to get someone else to do his cooking. Case 643/60, Jeremiah Akpan vs. Isong Akpan Ndeno, March 1961, Ebute Metta Magistrate's Court No. 1, vol.? [torn cover], 65-80.
129. LaRay Denzer, pers. comm. 26 Apr. 1996; Guyer, 'Organizational plan', 82. This was apparently true for men from Eastern Nigeria as well: in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979), 128, the heroine's son protests, 'Why should I help in the cooking? That's a woman's job'. And in a 1961 Lagos court case, an Efik merchant seaman testified that after his wife left him he had to get someone else to do his cooking. Case 643/60, Jeremiah Akpan vs. Isong Akpan Ndeno, March 1961, Ebute Metta Magistrate's Court No. 1, vol.? [torn cover], 65-80.
130. Interview: M. O. Shofekun, 4 Apr. 1994, Ibadan.
131. Railway Labour Officer to Traffic Manager, 25 Nov. 1946, NRC/GM 27, vol. 1.
132. For example, Sonya O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1992); Keith McClelland, 'Masculinity and the "representative artisan" in Britain, 1850-1880', in Michael Roper and John Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London, 1991).
133. For example, Sonya O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1992); Keith McClelland, 'Masculinity and the "representative artisan" in Britain, 1850-1880', in Michael Roper and John Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London, 1991).
134. One example of this is an exchange between the Railway Workers Union (RWU) and railway administrators in 1954 about the shortage of accommodation for Engineering Department laborers working on rail stations. With no provisions for them, such workers were sleeping in passengers' waiting rooms. The Chief Superintendent forbade this, however, and ordered that they only sleep on the stations' verandas. Further, he urged them to find somewhere else to take their meals, as it was undesirable to have food cooked and eaten in the vicinity of the office. Acting Chief Superintendent to District Secretaries, 18 June 1954 and General Secretary, Railway Workers Union of Nigeria (RWUN) to Chief Engineer, 8 Oct. 1854, NRC/GML 24/9, vol. 1.
135. Paul Opara to Chief Mechanical Engineer, 30 July 1948 in unnumbered NRC file on recruitment.
136. J. O. Makinde to District Engineer, 4 Oct. 1948, also in unnumbered NRC file on recruitment.
137. S. Olaolu Oduleye, Secretary-Treasurer of Nigerian Union of Railwayman (Federated) (NUR(F)), to John A. Dryden, Chief Medical Officer, 4 Aug. 1959, NRC/GMS 302/22, vol. 1.
138. Dryden to Emerson, Confidential, 12 Aug. 1959, and Emerson to Oduleye, 20 Aug. 1959, NRC/GMS 302/22, vol. 1.
139. Ward, Yoruba Husband-Wife, 57-78; Fadipe, Sociology, 89.
140. Ward, Yoruba Husband-Wife, 57-78; Fadipe, Sociology, 89.
141. Maurice Hall, Loco Inspector's Office, to S. Okiti, 26 May 1948, with Okiti's explanation on the back, NRC/GMS 33/2.
142. General Manager's Staff Circular 6/1961, 13 June 1961, NRC/GMS 335, vol. 3.
143. Oduleye, Secretary-General, NUR(F) to General Manager, n July 1961, and W. E. Mornu, District Secretary, NUR(F) Eastern District, to Oduleye and General Manager, 20 July 1961, NRC/GMS 302/22, vol. 1.
144. Acting General Manager to Chief Medical Officer, 29 Aug. 1961, NRC/GMS 302/22, vol. 1; Acting GM to Heads of Departments, 29 June 1965, in unnumbered file labeled 'Staff Manual'. As of December 1965, additional wives were treated at 25 per cent of hospital fees. GMSC No. 9/1965, 13 Dec. 1965, ibid. Daily-paid railwaymen's children had been registered in the Western District as early as 1955 to facilitate their preferential access to railway jobs. Minutes of Third Stage Departmental Council Meeting between Representatives of Railway Management and the RWU held 3-6 May 1955, NRC/GMS 24/18, vol. 1.
145. General Manager's Staff Circular 8/1964, 2 Sept. 1964, 'Registration of families', NRC/GMS 335, vol. 3.
146. General Manager's Staff Circular 20/1961, 23 Oct. 1961, NRC/GMS 302/22, vol. 1.
147. Circular No. 777/GM 649, 1944 and W. Thomas to Powell, 18 July 1944, NRC/GMS 24/63; 'Report of the Proceedings of the 7th Annual Delegates Conference of the Nigerian Transport Clerical Staff Union', July 1955, NRC/GMS 28/6; 'Brief Notes on the Agenda submitted by NTCSU for 3rd Stage Council Meeting', Dec. 1955, NRC/GMS 28/47.
148. RP53/59, Police vs. Sylvester Etuorem, 26 Aug. 1959, Ebute Metta No. 5 Magistrate's Court Criminal Record Book, vol. 42, 75-80.
149. F. O. Majekodunmi, 'The social background of industrial relations', The Railway Technician (Monthly Journal of the Railway Technical Staff Association), XLIII (Sept. 1961), 7-12; NRC/GMS 31, vol. 1.
150. Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, 'Between metropole and colony: rethinking a research agenda', in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, 1997); see also Frederick Cooper, 'Conflict and connection: rethinking colonial African history', Amer. Hist. Rev., IC (1994), 1516-45.
151. Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, 'Between metropole and colony: rethinking a research agenda', in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, 1997); see also Frederick Cooper, 'Conflict and connection: rethinking colonial African history', Amer. Hist. Rev., IC (1994), 1516-45.