A life's work : Harriet Bolton and Durban's trade unions, 1944-1974.
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Date
2009
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Abstract
This thesis seeks to document the life and work of veteran Durban trade unionist Harriet
Bolton, with a particular focus on the years from 1944 to 1974. Harriet Bolton lived and
worked through many of the crucial developments in South Africa’s labour history, and
her personal history is closely entwined with this broader history. Her recorded memories
of her years as a trade unionist offer a unique ‘way in’ to revisiting South Africa’s labour
history and particularly the critical period of Durban’s early 1970s. Harriet’s testimony,
gathered through a series of interviews, forms a core narrative throughout the thesis.
However, archive and newspaper material provide detailed contextualisation for the
interviews and opportunity to gain some perspective on questions of memory and of
Harriet’s own relationship with history. Her recorded memories of these years
substantially concern her experience as a trade unionist, but also as a working woman
who was a wife and mother, later a widow as well as an engaged citizen of Durban
society through her involvement in community organisations and welfare groups. As
such, deeper insight into what it meant to be a working woman of her generation is
gained. An important component of the thesis is a consideration of the history and
politics of the Garment Workers Industrial Union (Natal) and its workers. The union was
founded by Harriet’s husband Jimmy Bolton, and was for forty years closely associated
with the name and legacy of the Boltons. I examine Harriet’s leadership of this union in
the context of the shifting demographics of the union, and a changed political and
economic landscape in South Africa. This thesis is also concerned with the role that the
Trade Union Council of South Africa played during the period under consideration.
Harriet’s relationship with TUCSA and her experience as a white woman trade unionist
organising black trade unions ‘within’ the structures of this organisation provide the
historian with a unique perspective on TUCSA’s somewhat under-researched history.
Harriet’s role as a trade unionist during the tumultuous and critical period of the early
1970s, and a consideration of her contribution to the emerging non-racial trade union
movement, is an important component of the thesis. The years both pre and post the 1973
strike wave are revisited through Harriet’s lens. Insights in to the question of women’s
roles and contribution to South Africa’s labour movement are generated through gaining
an understanding of Harriet’s perspectives.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009
Keywords
Bolton, Harriet, 1927-2009., Garment Workers Industrial Union (Natal), Women labour union members--KwaZulu-Natal--Durban., Theses--History.