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Articles by Julia Laite
Travelling Ayahs and Amahs and the Long History of Care Work
In 2011, the International Labour Organisation’s convention number 189 recognised the rights of domestic workers worldwide, over 75% of whom are women, and over 80% of whom are informally employed. As their report ten years later indicates, the vast majority of these workers—who cook, clean, and care for dependents in private households around the world—have not secured formalised employment, fair pay, and decent conditions.
Ayahs, Amahs and Empire: The History of Domestic Care Work under Colonialism
SOURCE: History Workshop 5/11/2023 Roundup tags: colonialism, racism, British Empire, labor history, womens history, Indian history, South Asia, domestic work, history of the family by Julia Laite Julia Laite is Reader in Modern History at Birkbeck, University of London. She is also the Birkbeck Director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre and a member of the editorial collective of History Workshop Journal.
Wolfenden’s Women: Prostitution in Post-war Britain
Sam Caslin and Julia Laite Wolfenden’s Women is a critical sourcebook that compiles excerpts from the extensive interviews undertaken by the Wolfenden Committee on the subject of prostitution. The committee is remembered, first and foremost, for recommending the decriminalisation of sex between men. However, the other half of its remit—prostitution—has largely been forgotten, despite the fact that prostitution, not homosexuality, was the original impetus behind the committee’s appointment.
Circus in the Brain
The American Red Cross Club, on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Denman Street, opened its doors on 11 November 1942. Its windows were festooned with the Stars and Stripes to welcome newly arrived American GIs to London. The building was soon known as Rainbow Corner, a place where US troops gambled, drank and flirted with young women.
Editorial Note: Special Issue: Migration, Sex, and Intimate Labor
Notes 1. For a related discussion from the perspective of social science, see Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Maria Cecilia Hwang, and Heather Ruth Lee, "What Is Human Trafficking? A Review Essay," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 37, no. 4 (2012): 1015–29 and Janie Chuang, "Exploitation Creep and the Unmaking of Human Trafficking Law," American Journal of International Law 108, no. 1 (2014): 606–49. 2.
Tricked Out as a Virgin
Was Lydia Harvey ‘respectable’ or wasn’t she? This was a question on which a surprising number of people had a view in the summer of 1910, including the prime minister of New Zealand. Earlier that year, Harvey, then sixteen, had been working as a photographer’s assistant in Wellington when she suddenly left her boarding house. She wrote to her mother in Oamaru to explain that she had got a job as a nursemaid for a rich married couple who were going to take her on their travels.
The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE WEEK: A true story of sex, crime and the meaning of justice Julia Laite Buy from Bookshop.org Waterstones Foyles Blackwell's Amazon.co.uk Hive An immersive historical account of a fascinating and important untold story 'A gripping, unputdownable masterpiece of scholarly historical research and true crime writing.' Hallie Rubenhold, author of the Baillie Gifford prize-winning The Five 'Brilliantly summons up one girl's life, dreams and suffering.
What a century-old sex trafficking case in New Zealand reveals about modern exploitation and justice Original
We’ve all read stories of women who were coerced and abused in the sex industry. They pepper our newspapers, televisions and films – and Lydia Harvey’s story is no different. She was abused, confined against her will and never saw a penny of the money she earned selling sex. Lydia Harvey was brought to London where she was forced to solicit in the West End.
What this 100-year-old sex trafficking case tells us about modern exploitation and justice
In January 1910, a 16-year-old girl named Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship in Wellington, New Zealand, bound for Buenos Aires. She had been recruited by a pimp to work in Argentina’s booming sex trade. After a traumatic month in South America, she was brought to London where she was forced to solicit in the West End. It was here that Metropolitan police officers found her and used her as the star witness in a case against her traffickers.
What this hundred-year-old sex trafficking case tells us about modern exploitation and justice
In January 1910, a 16-year-old girl named Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship in Wellington, New Zealand, bound for Buenos Aires. She had been recruited by a pimp to work in Argentina’s booming sex trade. After a traumatic month in South America, she was brought to London where she was forced to solicit in the West End. It was here that Metropolitan police officers found her and used her as the star witness in a case against her traffickers.
Engage: What this hundred-year-old sex trafficking case tells us about modern exploitation and justice
In January 1910, a 16-year-old girl named Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship in Wellington, New Zealand, bound for Buenos Aires. She had been recruited by a pimp to work in Argentina’s booming sex trade. After a traumatic month in South America, she was brought to London where she was forced to solicit in the West End. It was here that Metropolitan police officers found her and used her as the star witness in a case against her traffickers.
‘An Equality of Injustice’: The Sex Buyers’ Bill and Lessons from History
On Wednesday, Labour MP Diana Johnson, backed by other prominent Labour back-benchers like Jess Philipps and Sarah Champion, proposed a new bill called ‘The Sex Buyer’s Law’, which aimed ‘to criminalise paying for sex; to decriminalise selling sex; to create offences relating to enabling or profiting from another person’s sexual exploitation; to make associated provision about sexual exploitation online; to make provision for support services for victims of sexual exploitation’.
Radical Uncertainty
In commissioning this feature, editorial fellow Rachel Moss asked contributors: how can we radically re-imagine the writing of history? Over the next few weeks, our contributors reply with creative new methods, sources and forms that they are using to reshape what history writing can look like. In this instalment, Julia Laite considers the possibilities offered by “uncertain, multi-possible, quantum history”. Locked gate. Image: Masaaki Komori, Unsplash.
Historians are gossips who tease the dead
Julia Laite I have recently been pondering Voltaire’s much quoted but rarely contextualized observation that It goes to the heart of something that’s been bothering me ever since I dug further into the details of a case of a young woman who had appeared in my book as a victim of trafficking.
Little tolerance for zero tolerance: prostitution reform in Scotland
A new bill seeks to shift Scotland from zero tolerance of prostitution to full decriminalisation. Can it successfully make the transition to the New Zealand model? Last September Jean Urquhart, a member of the Scottish parliament for the Highlands and Islands, launched a consultation on a new bill that would decriminalise sex work in Scotland.
Historians are gossips who tease the dead
Julia Laite I have recently been pondering Voltaire’s much quoted but rarely contextualized observation that It goes to the heart of something that’s been bothering me ever since I dug further into the details of a case of a young woman who had appeared in my book as a victim of trafficking.
(Sexual) Labour Day
Julia Laite I’ve often said that researching prostitution makes me more of a labour historian than a historian of sexuality. Despite having typically been lumped into the same categories as homosexuality and other perceived sexual deviances, women who sold sex in the past connected their actions not to their sexuality but to their work. They also very often saw themselves as a group of workers.
Between the cracks: on being a historian of sex
Julia Laite It’s a familiar feeling. I stare at the email or online form that requests my biographical information for the university website/conference booklet/journal publication. This is the place where I am meant to ‘tag’ myself, to tell people what I work on. It should be simple enough. But it sends me into a personal historiographical crisis. What kind of historian am I? I begin to write.
Are Historians of Sexuality Sexier than Other Historians?
Julia Laite Because there is a certain intimacy to writing for a blog, I feel there is a little more of myself that gets revealed in writing it than does when I am wearing my Journal Publications and Monograph hat. This has led me to reflect on some very important questions (see above).
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