Foreword: Lessons of Work and Workers

Western Folklore, Winter 2006 by McCarl, Robert

The following material was presented as the keynote address at the "Lessons of Work Conference" held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. This event, marking the establishment of both an archive and a scholarship in occupational folklore at the University, testifies to the strength and dedication of Archie Green. Subsequent conferences and "laborlore conversations" have been held in Oakland, California (2004) and again in Chapel Hill in 2005. Dr. Green's untiring efforts as an advocate of labor studies research has resulted not only in this academic milestone, it has also brought the importance of laborlore to the attention of trade unionists and the general public.

In January of 1975, I stepped onto the deck of the Louise Ley, a sixty-five foot towboat that was waiting to lock through at Alton, Illinois on its way past St. Louis and onto New Orleans. I stowed my gear in a forward cabin, unpacked my camera and headed for the bow area where two deckhands were working. With frozen fingers, both men were tightening the ratchets on the metal breastwork fastenings that held us to the single tow we were taking through the lock. As I walked toward the two deckhands, I looked down the length of the narrow lock and could hear and feel the ice crunching and rasping as the large boat chafed against the sides of the concrete lock and bumped against the grain-filled barge. I steadied myself to shoot a picture of the deckhands at work-my first actual field experience since being hired by the Smithsonian to do the research for the Festival's Working Americans presentation-and watched incredulously through the viewfinder as both men literally flung their legs out from under them, hit the deck and shouted, "Look out!" Not knowing what to look out for, I lunged for the safety of one of the large upright knees in the bow of the boat, at the same instant that a tremendous roar whistled past my right ear and an answering crash reverberated across the deck. When things finally settled down, the mangled remains of one of the large metal ratchets, with a twisted cable core thicker than my thigh, lay in pieces on the deck. I was later to learn that ice between the bow of the boat and the tow caused what could have been a fatal accident. As I picked myself up and checked to see that I was still intact, one of the deckhands lit a cigarette, tossed the match toward the offending ratchet and leaned over to shout against the stiff offshore gale: "Welcome to the river, pardner."

I tell this story at the beginning of this essay for a number of reasons. First, it introduces the subject of fieldwork and research in occupational contexts. All cultural workers-occupational and otherwise-have field experiences. Yet, when we enter the world of work one of the most important concerns for us personally and professionally is that of position. Not just our physical position within the flow of work that could lead us into the path of flying equipment, but our personal and ethical position; what we tell ourselves and others about why we are there in the first place and what we will subsequently do with the information we record. We establish a position relative to the primary work group and the changing structural forces that shape and in essence create the oppositional culture of the workplace. We also articulate our positioning with regard to outside concerns and attachments as these elements impact our research. As fieldworkers who examine the economic activities of others, we sit like Jonah in the belly of the very beast we have come to beard. Our own surplus labor is appropriated by agencies and institutions-universities and the corporations that support them-just as the products and services of others are subsumed by a capitalist structure over which we have little control.

In the material which follows I hope to show, primarily through my own personal experiences, how the oppositional techniques of cultural work itself can provide a critique of work while at the same time develop a cooperative relationship with workers to articulate views and strategies that fit their needs. The conferences and the establishment of the fund in Occupational Folklife at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, acknowledge the high standards in this field set by Archie Green. In order to maintain those standards, we musk ask hard questions of ourselves and our positions within the ranks of contemporary and future cultural workers.

First, I would like to take up the theoretical position that put me on that freezing deck twenty years ago. I recall a 1975 meeting in Washington, D.G., with Ralph Rinzler, Archie Green, Bob Byington and Bess Lomax Hawes, where the preliminary planning for the Working Americans section of the Festival of American Folklife took place. We were all drawing upon our combined personal narratives of work and experiences with work culture. The name we came up with-occupational folklife-suggested on the one hand a focus on skill performances as a microcosm of work identity. This term, in its use of the European notion of folklife, or life way, carries a class distinction between folk and non-folk that is a continuing problematic. In contrast with the folklife model, I recall being impressed with Archie's commitment to labor rather than work as a paradigm for the Working Americans Section. Archie's notion of laborlore-the body of knowledge and experience born of political organization through unions as well as through shop floor and craft consciousness-informed the Working Americans Section since his initial conceptualization of the project. (McCarl 1978)