Read more
For working people, the cost of getting to work, in terms of time and expense, is a crucial aspect of daily life. In the twentieth century, people's opportunity to travel increased. This did not, however, apply to everyone. The absence of affordable housing near job locations combined with the lack of safe, efficient, and affordable mobility options aggravated social exclusion for some.
No Bicycle, No Bus, No Job details how power relations have historically enabled or restricted workers' mobility in twentieth century Netherlands. Blue-collar workers, industrial employers, and the state shaped workers' everyday commute in a changing playing field of uneven power relations that shifted from paternalism to neo-liberalism.
List of contents
Acknowledgements, Figures, Introduction, How Workers' Travel was Controlled in Many Ways, Mobility in Key Dutch Industrial Centers, Grasping the Worker's Perspective of Mobility, 1 Responding to the Transport Mismatch, 1920-1940, 2 Protesting Bus Regulations during the Depression, 1926-1938, 3 Mobility Austerity during War and Scarcity, 1940-1947, 4 Mobility Barriers during Postwar Industrialization, 1947-1970, 5 Postwar Mobility Practices, 1947-1970, 6 Disciplining Cyclists and Moped Riders, 7 Mobilizing Rural and Migrant Workers by Company Bus, 8 Leaving Workers to their Own Devices during Deindustrialization, 1970-1990, Conclusion, Bibliography, Archival Collections, Online Collections, Newspaper and Journal Articles, Published Documentation of Government and Non-Governmental Organizations, Scholarly Publications, Index
About the author
Patrick Bek is a historian who received his PhD in 2021 from Eindhoven University of Technology. His research interests include labor history, history of technology, and mobility studies. He currently lectures at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
