Archival study reveals labor incorporation and identity reconstruction in Shanghai newspaper vendors, highlighting a dynamic interplay between state power and grassroots resistance.
Key Points
Examine the institutional restructuring and identity transformation of Shanghai newspaper vendors from informal, guild-governed hawkers to integrated socialist state workers between 1911 and 1956.
Analyzed primary archival materials, contemporary newspapers, and institutional records covering labor administration in Shanghai from 1911 through 1956.
Evaluated historical policy implementations, focusing on postal-distribution integration, ideological education programs, and occupational redefinition initiatives.
State-led postal-distribution integration transformed vendors from profit-oriented street hawkers into unified postal employees, elevating their official status in state discourse from urban underclass to national masters.
Labor incorporation was reciprocal rather than absolute, with vendors exercising agency through everyday resistance tactics such as passive waiting, business slowdowns, and reliance on informal mutual-aid networks.