Domesticity and difference: Male breadwinners, working women, and colonial citizenship in the 1945 Nigerian general strike

American Historical Review

Volumn 104, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 783-812

  Lindsay, Lisa A ^a,b,c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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

^c UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750224622     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2650988     Document Type: Article

References (214)

1. James S. Coleman, in Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (1958; rpt. edn., Berkeley, Calif., 1971), 259, estimates that 30,000 workers struck; the Nigerian department of labor's 1945 Annual Report put the figure at 42,951, including 34,000 government employees.
2. Wogu Ananaba, The Trade Union Movement in Nigeria: Promise and Performance (London, 1969), chap. 7;
3. Robin Cohen, Labour and Politics in Nigeria, 1945-71 (London, 1974);
4. Coleman, Nigeria, chap. 11;
5. L. M. E. Emejulu, A Brief History of the Railway Workers Union (Lagos, 1949), 5-62
6. ; Wale Oyemakinde, "The Nigerian General Strike of 1945," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 7 (1975): 693-710.
7. On the construction of (exclusively) male workers as legitimate citizens in Britain, see Anna Clark, "Manhood, Womanhood, and the Politics of Class in Britain, 1790-1845,"
8. and Keith McClelland, "Rational and Respectable Men: Gender, the Working Class, and Citizenship in Britain, 1850-1867,"
9. both in Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose, eds., Gender and Class in Modern Europe (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996), 263-79, 280-93.
10. An overview is provided in Colin Creighton, "The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal," Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996): 310-37.
11. Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley, Calif., 1995), traces the origin of the breadwinner wage demand in Britain to trade unionists' political weakness in the 1830s.
12. See Sonya O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, Calif., 1992).
13. The literature is best summarized in the excellent introductory essays in Ava Baron, ed., Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca, N. Y., 1991);
14. and Frader and Rose, Gender and Class.
15. For instance, Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985);
16. Christine Oppong, Marriage among a Matrilineal Elite: A Family Study of Ghanaian Senior Civil Servants (Cambridge, 1974);
17. and Karen Tranberg Hansen, ed., African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992).
18. An exception is Nancy Rose Hunt, "'Le Bebe en Brousse': European Women, African Birth Spacing and Colonial Intervention in Breast Feeding in the Belgian Congo," International Journal of African Historical Studies 21 (1988): 401-32.
19. Colin Murray, Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho (Johannesburg, 1981);
20. Harold Wolpe, "Capitalism and Cheap Labour-Power in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid," Economy and Society 1 (1972): 425-56.
21. Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990).
22. George Chauncey, Jr., "The Locus of Reproduction: Women's Labour in the Zambian Copperbelt, 1927-1953," Journal of Southern African Studies 7 (1981): 135-64;
23. Jane Parpart, "Class and Gender on the Copperbelt: Women in Northern Rhodesian Copper Mining Communities, 1926-1964," in Claire Robertson and Iris Berger, eds., Women and Class in Africa (New York, 1986).
24. 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, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1976).
25. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996).
26. Cooper, Decolonization.
27. Two different formulations of the same broad concept appear in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, Calif., 1997);
28. and Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, N.J., 1996).
29. Ann Stoler, "Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule," Comparative Studies in Society and History 31 (1989): 134-61;
30. and Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (Durham, N.C., 1995).
31. Also see Cooper and Stoler, Tensions of Empire.
32. See Cooper, Decolonization, chap. 7.
33. Lindsay, "Putting the Family on Track."
34. Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979).
35. The novelist was born in Lagos in 1944, the daughter of a railway worker and petty trader, and her fiction often addresses themes from her mother's and her own life. Historical treatments of Lagos in this period include Pauline H. Baker, Urbanization and Political Change: The Politics of Lagos, 1917-1967 (Berkeley, Calif., 1974);
36. Sandra T. Barnes, Patrons and Power: Creating a Political Community in Metropolitan Lagos (Bloomington, Ind., 1986);
37. Akin Mabogunje, Urbanization in Nigeria (London, 1968);
38. G. O. Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria, 1939-1953 (Lagos, 1973);
39. and Coleman, Nigeria.
40. Appendix XVI, Memorandum of the Commissioner of the Colony on Unemployment in Lagos, in W. Tudor Davies (chair), Enquiry into the Cost of Living and the Control of the Cost of Living in the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, Colonial No. 204 (London, 1946), 199.
41. African Civil Servants Technical Workers Union to Chief Secretary to the Government, March 22, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 66-68.
42. A. F. B. Bridges (chair), Report on the Cost of Living Committee (Lagos, 1942).
43. Also see Cooper, Decolonization, 131-34.
44. Appendix XX, Copy of script of broadcast by Sir Bernard Bourdillon on July 24, 1942, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 220-22.
45. Olusanya, Second World War.
46. Ananaba, Trade Union Movement, chap. 7.
47. For the larger African context, see Cooper, Decolonization, chap. 4;
48. and David Killingray and Richard Rathbone, eds., Africa and the Second World War (New York, 1986).
49. Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 108, 214-20.
50. Family allowances had been first introduced for British soldiers during World War I. See Susan Pedersen, "Gender, Welfare, and Citizenship in Britain during the Great War," AHR 95 (October 1990): 983-1006;
51. and Pederson, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-1945 (Cambridge, 1993).
52. Cited in Nnamdi Azikiwe's column, "Inside Stuff," West African Pilot, July 4, 1945.
53. "Artokhamen Imoudu Concludes Dramatic Series on Events Preceding 1942 COLA," West African Pilot, June 12, 1945.
54. For background on Imoudu, see Robin Cohen, "Michael Imoudu and the Nigerian Labour Movement," Race and Class 18 (1977): 345-62;
55. Cohen, "Nigeria's Labour Leader No. 1: Notes for a Biographical Study of M. A. O. Imoudu," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 5 (1970): 303-08;
56. and Wale Oyemakinde, "Michael Imoudu and the Emergence of Militant Trade Unionism in Nigeria, 1940-1942," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 7 (1974): 541-61.
57. Wale Oyemakinde, "The Pullen Marketing Scheme: A Trial in Food Price Control in Nigeria, 1941-1947," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 6 (1973): 413-23.
58. Cheryl Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura and the Lagos Market Women," Tarikh: Grass Roots Leadership in Colonial West Africa 7 (1981): 1-10;
59. Nina Emma Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900-1965 (Berkeley, Calif., 1982), 226-31. For decades, Macaulay provided political assistance to the Lagos market women, which under Pelewura's leadership supported his NNDP. Some of their correspondence is in the Herbert Macaulay Papers, Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
60. Mba, Nigerian Women, 200-04;
61. Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 4-6, 6 quoted.
62. Oyemakinde, "Pullen Marketing Scheme," 423;
63. Ananaba, Trade Union Movement, 46-47;
64. Mba, Nigerian Women, 227-28.
65. Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 7-8.
66. Olusanya, Second World War, 64.
67. Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 7-8.
68. Appendix VI, Memorandum of Director of Supplies on Measures Taken to Keep Down the Cost of Living; and Appendix VIII, Reply by Director of Supplies to Appendix 7, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 121-25, 131-32.
69. Oyemakinde did the same thing, writing that "market women took advantage of the prevailing scarcity to profiteer." "Nigerian General Strike," 695.
70. Also see Oyemakinde, "Pullen Marketing Scheme," 415.
71. E. O. Oyefeso, "Cost of Living and Nigerian Workers," West African Pilot, June 16, 1945;
72. J. Ola Oluwole, "Regarding Food Crisis in Lagos," West African Pilot, July 2, 1945.
73. Editorial, "So London Women Can't Take It!" West African Pilot, August 24, 1945.
74. Pullen had also raised the English comparison in regard to women's income tax, arguing at a mass meeting with market women that women in England paid tax. Pelewura retorted that such a comparison was not fair, since "England is where the money is made." Mba, Nigerian Women, 203;
75. Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 5.
76. Ben Oluwole, "The Pullen Market Must Go!" West African Pilot, August 21, 1945.
77. Examples are "Food Scarcity Heightens Again," June 1, 1945;
78. "Market Women Want Elimination of Gari Control," June 18, 1945;
79. "Stories Told by Working Class Mothers," July 4, 1945.
80. "The Gari Situation in Lagos," West African Pilot, June 19, 1945;
81. "Human Approach to the Labour Crisis," West African Pilot, June 20, 1945;
82. Nnamdi Azikiwe, "Inside Stuff: History of the General Strike (3)," West African Pilot, September 5, 1945.
83. The exception to this trend was Macaulay; see "Madam Pelewura & 2 Lagos White-Cap Chiefs Will Join NCNC Delegation," West African Pilot, June 25, 1945.
84. Women's grievances were similarly downplayed by the British strikers Sonya Rose describes in "Respectable Men, Disorderly Others: The Language of Gender and the Lancashire Weavers' Strike of 1878 in Britain," Gender and History 5 (1993): 382-97.
85. "Human Approach to the Labour Crisis," West African Pilot, June 20, 1945;
86. "20,000 Mercantile Workers Endorse All Demands of Technical Workers' Union," West African Pilot, June 19, 1945.
87. ACSTWU to Chief Secretary to the Government, March 22, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 66-68; W. R. T. Milne, Acting Chief Secretary to the Government to ACSTWU, May 22, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, 68-69.
88. ACSTWU Resolution, May 19, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 69-70.
89. J. O. Erinle, General Secretary of ACSTWU to Chief Secretary to the Government, June 1, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 70-71.
90. "MAO Imoudu Returns to Lagos after a Period of 2 Years in Detention: 50,000 Accord Him Fitting Welcome," West African Pilot, June 4, 1945;
91. Oyemakinde, "Nigerian General Strike," 698.
92. G. F. T. Colby, Acting Chief Secretary to the Government to T. A. Bankole, President of ACSTWU, June 11, 1945, rpt. in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 71-73.
93. The West African Pilot ran an indignant editorial, "Repatriation of the Unemployed," on June 21, 1945.
94. "Technical Workers Resolve to Order General Strike at Midnight on June 21," and "Market Women Want Elimination of Gari Control," West African Pilot, June 18, 1945.
95. Ananaba has inflated the number of attendees at the workers' meeting to 8,000; Trade Union Movement, 52.
96. Coleman, Nigeria, 257.
97. Interviews by the author in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, with retired railwaymen M. O. Shofekun and Francis Soetan, April 4 and 12, respectively, 1994.
98. Memorandum on Strike of African Civil Servants Technical Workers Unions, June-August 1945, in Nigerian Archives, Ibadan (hereafter, NAI), Resident's Office, Oyo Province, 2/3/C.328.
99. Appendix II, Memorandum of Supreme Council of Nigerian Workers, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 54;
100. also see Oyemakinde, "Nigerian General Strike," 699.
101. Memorandum on Strike of African Civil Servants Technical Workers Unions, June-August 1945, NAI, Oyo Province, 2/3/C.328. Coleman made the same point; Nigeria, 259.
102. "Servicemen Drafted to Strikers' Posts: Grave Diggers & Night Soil Men on Strike," West African Pilot, June 25, 1945.
103. See "Govt. Control of Gari Ceases Today But May Reappear If Profiteering Creeps In," West African Pilot, August 27, 1945;
104. and "Pullen Scheme Must Now Go," West African Pilot, February 7, 1946.
105. Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 17.
106. Also see Ananaba, Trade Union Movement, chap. 8;
107. Emejulu, Brief History, 64-68;
108. Cooper, Decolonization, 136.
109. Even Azikiwe's 74-part "History of the General Strike," serialized in the West African Pilot in the fall of 1945, failed to acknowledge the significance of the market women's support.
110. T. A. Bankole, "The June 1945 Unauthorized General Strike,"
111. memorandum serialized in the West African Pilot, September 1945. Relevant sections are in "Mr. TA Bankole Describes the Meeting with Labour Commissioner Two Days before the June 1945 Strike," September 12, 1945; and "Mr. Bankole Says Workers Were Incensed by Mr. Imoudu to Revolt Against Their Leaders," September 13, 1945.
112. Oyemakinde, "Nigerian General Strike," 704;
113. Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 9.
114. This is evident from press reports of meetings and joint activities in the first half of the 1940s. Also see Mba, Nigerian Women, chap. 7;
115. and Johnson, "Madam Alimotu Pelewura," 9. Similarly, Azikiwe backed the strike for nationalist reasons but also because he actively sought the political support of wage workers. Thus nationalist and class interests are difficult to disengage from the practical stuff of price controls, wages, and political alliances between local power brokers.
116. Imoudu and Adediran, Railway Workers Union to Mesdames Pelewura and Lagunju, President and Vice-Président of the Female Market Leaders Association (Egbe Awon Oloja Obinrin), original (in Yoruba) in the Macaulay Papers, Dike Library. Translation assistance by Jide Oyeneye is gratefully acknowledged.
117. Nigeria, Census of Lagos (Lagos, 1950), 17.
118. The survey was conducted in 1993-1994 among 167 retired railwaymen and fifty-three of their wives, with the assistance of Jide Oyeneye, Olufunmilayo Carew, and Olusanya Ibitoye. Forty-one of the informants were employed during the 1940s. More information is in Lindsay, "Putting the Family on Track."
119. S. Comhaire-Sylvain, "Le travail des femmes à Lagos, Nigeria," Zaire 5 (1951): 169-87.
120. Also see N. A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yomba, F. O. Okediji and O. O. Okediji, eds. (Ibadan, 1970), 88, 152-57;
121. Wambui M. Karanja-Diejomaoh, "Perceptions of Marriage, Family and Work in Nigeria: Study of Lagos Market Women" (DPhil thesis, Oxford University, 1980);
122. Akin Mabogunje, "The Market-Woman," Ibadan 11 (1961): 14-17;
123. Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yomba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1973).
124. "Workers' Week Celebrations," The Nigerian Worker (published by the Federated Trades Union of Nigeria) 1, no. 5 (April 1944): 5.
125. Fadipe, Sociology of the Yomba, 88;
126. 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, Calif., 1988);
127. Peter Marris, Family and Social Change in an African City: A Study of Rehousing in Lagos (Evanston, 111., 1962), chap. 4;
128. Sudarkasa, Where Women Work.
129. Based on my examination of divorce records from Bere Native Court, Ibadan, located in the Obafemi Owolowo University Library, Ife. Also see Nigeria, Annual Report of the Federal Social Welfare Department for the Year 1955-56 (Lagos, 1956), 10.
130. Interview with the author, Rebecca Uchefuna, February 21, 1994, Ibadan. Raheem Balogun, head of the Lagos branch of the Railway Pensioners' Union, seconded that opinion. Interview with the author, July 20, 1998, Lagos.
131. Emecheta, Joys of Motherhood, 117.
132. Also see "She Prefers an Ex-Soldier to a News Vendor," in Miss Silva's regular column on women called "Milady's Bower," West African Pilot, March 23, 1946, in which a newspaper salesman reports being jilted by his fiancee because he did not have a government income.
133. Interview with the author, S. O. Akintola, May 2, 1994, Ibadan.
134. For similar views, see Ousmane Sembene's fictionalized account of the French West African railway strike, God's Bits of Wood (Oxford, 1970);
135. and Frederick Cooper's commentary on women's involvement in "'Our Strike': Equality, Anticolonial Politics and the 1947-48 Railway Strike in French West Africa," Journal of African History 37 (1996): 81-118, 95-96.
136. For an analogous argument about family wage demands in Britain, see Creighton, "Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family."
137. Criminal Record Book, Ebute Metta (Lagos) Magistrate's Court, vol. 62B, E. O. Bukola vs. L. B. Lawal, 3596/50, June 21, 1950, 324.
138. Interviews with the author in Ibadan: Bernard Aruna, December 28, 1993; S. O. Akintola, May 2, 1944; Florence Owolabi, January 7, 1994. Also see Sudarkasa, Where Women Work.
139. See Pat Ayers and Jan Lambertz, "Marriage Relations, Money, and Domestic Violence in Working-Class Liverpool, 1919-39," in Sandra Burman, ed., Fit Work for Women (New York, 1979).
140. I have withheld the names to avoid embarrassment. Interviews with the author in Ibadan, February 17 and April 12, 1994.
141. Examples include Oke Are (Ibadan) Civil Record Book, vol. 21, 1693/30, Ayi vs. Lawani, September 1930, 231-37; Bere (Ibadan) I Civil Record Book, no vol. [torn cover], 529/38, Moriamo vs. Raimi, June 1938, 16-19; Bere I Civil Record Book, vol. 23, 233/42, Foyeke vs. Obasawi, February 1942, 125-26; Oke Are II Civil Record Book, vol. 12, 33/50, S. A. Akinfanda vs. Sabititu, February 1950, 231-37, all located in the Obafemi Awolowo University Library, Ife.
142. Interview with the author, Olukemi Alabi, December 4, 1994, Ibadan.
143. Much of the relevant literature has been summarized in Creighton, "Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family." Also see Pedersen, Family, Dependence;
144. Rose, Limited Livelihoods;
145. Laura L. Frader, "Engendering Work and Wages: The French Labor Movement and the Family Wage, "
146. in Frader and Rose, Gender and Class;
147. and Martha May, "Bread before Roses: American Workingmen, Labor Unions, and the Family Wage," in Ruth Milkman, ed., Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History (London, 1985).
148. Rose, Limited Livelihoods.
149. It should be pointed out that, in the nineteenth century, only skilled men in certain trades were actually able to support their families on their wages, in spite of more widespread male breadwinner rhetoric. M. Barrett and M. McIntosh, "The 'Family Wage': Some Problems for Socialists and Feminists," Capital and Class 9 (1980): 51-72.
150. Pedersen, Family, Dependence;
151. John Macnicol, The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918-45: A Study in Social Policy Development (London, 1980).
152. Also see Frader, "Engendering Work and Wages."
153. so British examples include Clark, Struggle for the Breeches;
154. Rose, Limited Livelihoods,
155. and "Respectable Men, Disorderly Others";
156. and 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).
157. Minute by D. E. Faulkner, Social Welfare Officer, to Commissioner of Lagos Colony, July 31, 1947, NAI, Comcol 1/3236.
158. Appendix I, Statement by the Chief Secretary to the Government, G. Beresford Stooke, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 52.
159. Nigeria, Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Nigeria (Lagos, 1936), 62.
160. Memorandum on "Rates of Pay of Laborers and Employees in the Southern Provinces," Acting Chief Secretary's Office, Lagos, September 3, 1935, cited in John F. Weeks, "Wage Policy and the Colonial Legacy - A Comparative Study," Journal of Modern African Studies 9 (1971): 361-87, 375.
161. See, for example, Wally Seccombe, "Patriarchy Stabilized: The Construction of the Male Breadwinner Wage Norm in Nineteenth-Century Britain," Social History 2 (1986): 53-76;
162. and Sonya O. Rose, "Gender Antagonism and Class Conflict: Exclusionary Strategies of Male Trade Unionists in Nineteenth-Century Britain," Social History 13 (1988): 191-208.
163. Some even publicly defended women's access to wage employment. Lindsay, "Putting the Family on Track," chap. 3.
164. Bridges, Report, 101.
165. Excerpt from April 26, 1944, speech on Lagos Radio Distribution Service, in The Nigerian Worker 1, no. 5 (April 1944): 4.
166. Excerpt from speech entitled "Family Allowances," in The Nigerian Worker 1, no. 7 (December 1944):
167. James Coleman points out that the Trade Union Congress was in contact with a number of foreign organizations, including the Fabian Society and the British Trade Union Congress, either of which could have supplied Shonekan and other Nigerian labor leaders with information on British debates and policies relevant to family allowances. Coleman, Nigeria, 257.
168. For the conceptual links between the family wage and public citizenship in Britain, see Rose, Limited Livelihoods, chap. 6;
169. and Pedersen, Family, Dependence, chap. 6.
170. Appendix II, Memorandum of the Supreme Council of Nigerian Workers, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 63-64.
171. That Nigerians were aware of the Beveridge proposals and compared them to Nigerian welfare provisions is clear from "Interim Relief for Unemployed Workers" (editorial), West African Pilot, January 28, 1946.
172. For a letter to the editor stressing the links between citizenship and family allowances, see J. O. Lawanson (from Ile-Ife), "Family Allowances for Nigerian Worker," West African Pilot, January 23, 1946.
173. Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 18, 48.
174. Minute by Deputy Financial Secretary S. R. Marlow, November 7, 1946, NAI, CSO 26/46820/S.1.
175. L. M. E. Emejulu, General Secretary of the African Civil Servants Technical Workers Union, to Commissioner of Labour, December 10, 1946; Minute by Marlow to the Governor, January 9, 1947, both in NAI, CSO 26/46820/S.1.
176. Walter Harragin (chair), Report of the Commission on the Civil Service of British West Africa, 1945-46 (Accra, 1946), 19 (first and third quotations), 8 (second quotation).
177. Minute to Chief Secretary to the Government from Financial Secretary, January 17, 1947, NAI, CSO 26/46820/S.1.
178. Public Announcement, n.d. [February 1947], NAI, CSO 26/46820/S.1.
179. "The Excuses of Harragin for Refusing Africans Marriage Allowance," West African Pilot, December 11, 1946.
180. "Hell Is Let Loose: Tear Gas and Water Hose Are Used to Disperse 500 Loco Workers," West African Pilot, March 13, 1947;
181. "Railway Men Are Hopeful after a Long Meeting with Officials over Harragin," West African Pilot, March 15, 1947.
182. Emejulu wrote that 3,000 railwaymen and other workers were involved; Brief History, 71-74.
183. General Manager's Staff Circular No. 11/50, December 6, 1950, Nigerian Railway Corporation file (hereafter, NRC), GMS 335 vol. 1, located in the NRC Headquarters, Ebute Metta, Lagos.
184. C. J. Mabey, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, to Civil Secretaries of Northern and Eastern Regions and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health, Ibadan, November 16, 1953, Public Record Office, London (hereafter, PRO), CO 554/1340.
185. Nigeria, Annual Report of the Labour Office, Ibadan, 1951-52, 5, in NAI, Oyo Province, 1/1589/1; minute from S. L. A. Manuwa, Inspector-General of Medical Services, to Secretary of State, July 20, 1953. PRO, CO 888/10.
186. Memorandum submitted by the Railway Workers Union to Gorsuch Commission, November 1, 1954, NRC, GMS 337/8. Also see "Union Urges Pay Increase for Juniors," Daily Times (Lagos), November 1, 1954.
187. L. H. Gorsuch (chair), Report of the Commission on the Public Services of the Governments in the Federation of Nigeria, 1954-55 (Lagos, 1955), 41.
188. Also see Cooper, Decolonization, 448.
189. Colonial Labour Advisory Committee, Report of the Sub-Committee on Wage Fixing and Family Responsibilities, PRO, CO 859/810; Cooper, Decolonization, 331-33;
190. Lindsay, "Putting the Family on Track," 160-66.
191. Frederick Cooper, "From Free Labor to Family Allowances: Labor and African Society in Colonial Discourse," American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 745-65;
192. "The Senegalese General Strike of 1946 and the Labor Question in Post-War French Africa," Canadian Journal of African Studies 24 (1990): 165-215;
193. and Decolonization, chaps. 6-7.
194. Cooper, Decolonization, chap. 8;
195. Pedersen, Family, Dependence.
196. For instance, Rose, Limited Livelihoods;
197. Seccombe, "Patriarchy Stabilized";
198. Laura Lee Downs, Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995).
199. For parallels among British textile workers in the 1830s, see Clark, Struggle for the Breeches, chap. 11.
200. For example, the commissioner of the colony's 1946 slum clearance recommendations alleged that "much of the dirt and mess in the township is due to the women." T. Hoskyns-Abrahall, "Recommedations for the Planning and Development of Lagos," May 1946 (NAI, CE/H9). For similar outlooks in postcolonial Ghana, see Claire Robertson, "The Death of Makola and Other Tragedies," Canadian Journal of African Studies 17 (1983): 469-95;
201. and Gracia Clark, Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women (Chicago, 1994).
202. See Mba, Nigerian Women, 234-89.
203. Cooper, Decolonization.
204. But compare Timothy Scarnecchia, "The Politics of Gender and Class in the Creation of African Communities, Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1940-56" (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1993).
205. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
206. Of course, it was often contentious in Europe, too. Jane Mark-Lawson and Anne Witz, "From 'Family Labour' to 'Family Wage'? The Case of Women's Labour in Nineteenth-Century Coalmining," Social History 13 (1988): 151-74;
207. Pedersen, Family, Dependence;
208. and Susan Pedersen, "The Failure of Feminism in the Making of the British Welfare State," Radical History Review 43 (1989): 86-110;
209. Rose, Limited Livelihoods;
210. John Tosh, "What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Britain," History Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 179-202.
211. "All We Ask for Is Fairplay!" West African Pilot, November 28, 1945.
212. Appendix II, Memorandum of the Supreme Council of Nigerian Workers, in Tudor Davies, Enquiry into the Cost of Living, 61.
213. "Justice Ends Where Colour Begins," Daily Service, June 27, 1945,
214. quoted in Nnamdi Azikiwe, "Inside Stuff: History of the General Strike (50)," West African Pilot, November 17, 1945, emphasis added.