[From Introduction]: ‘Work’ is not a topic that much concerns contemporary novelists or fires the creative imagination. Today, writing about work is primarily done by investigative reporters like Elizabeth Wynhausen, whose Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market (2005) is a striking – if rare – under-cover exposé of what ‘economic reform’ really means for menial Australian workers. There is certainly no literary equivalent now of the British and Australian novels, appearing in the 1950s and 1960s, preoccupied with the relationship between changing patterns of work and working-class experience: the lived transformations of traditional class and family ties; the impact of new consuming habits and popular cultural pursuits; the political situation of ordinary working people, and shifts in their attitudes and values. These British and Australian novels generally assumed that reorganisations of the working coal face or factory floor extended into the private sphere, informing or producing the stressful personal dramas played out in communities and at the kitchen sink.This thesis argues that these novels were elements of a broader dialogue in the 50s and 60s: one in which work and working-class life were significant subjects, articulated in a range of complementary discourses that were interlocutory – economic and political analysis, sociology, nascent cultural theory, popular newspaper commentary and literature. Consequently, a main objective of this thesis is to reveal how these representational forms or disciplines converged in the period 1950–1965: to examine their common themes and interests, and their collectiveresponses to questions concerning working-class life. The thesis argues that all these forms or disciplines shared the view that the condition of the working classes, in both Britain and Australia, crucially mattered to the overall social architecture of the time. It also argues that they all regarded the presence of America, the era’s pre-eminent global force, as central to such questions; and that America was complexly understood as an idealised political concept, a power-house of popular cultural production, and a very real engine of socio-economic change.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:27:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Juscelina_Matos.pdf: 2107507 bytes, checksum: 57a407300c69e76f5a57c74bd432e72c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-04 / As Durand (1988), the fashion is capricious matter, which invites us to speak of many things. Speaking in fashion is not only remember of the fashion designers and parades importants is mainly know how they dress ordinary people, as they do for follow the latest fashion and adapt it to their daily lives. It's talk, as objective is of this study, as was the behavior of fashion of the women in Vitória da Conquista-BA between the years 1950 and 1965; of how fashion is related to the lives of these women who live far from large cities, in a period of limited resources and access to information in more limited of fashion. We talking about, too, as the women's from there of different social classes were wearing at this time. Not just talking about the lady of society, but talking about how the worker, the seller of the little store the corner, a housewife, a seamstress is related to fashion. We still talk as the vestiment practices are closely related to the role that women was doing in the season. We show which were the main influencers of fashion in the city, as magazines, parades, competitions of beauty and social events. We seek to retract who were the main seamstresses local, shopping areas and how the binomial production/consumption constitute itself in marks symbolic of distinction. The approach adapted in this investigation have how sustentation the methodology of historical research where we are privilege the analysis of photographic images, anchored in oral history and analysis of other secondary documents as newspapers and magazines of time. Of crossing of the photographic document whit other fonts complementary is that we can rebuild the social practices and vestiment practices of them. / Como afirma Durand (1988), a moda é assunto caprichoso, que nos convida a falar de muitas coisas. Falar em moda não é só lembrar dos grandes estilistas e desfiles importantes é sobretudo saber como se vestem as pessoas comuns, como o fazem para seguir a última moda e adaptá-la às suas vidas cotidianas. Trata-se de falar, como é objetivo do presente estudo, como era o comportamento de moda das mulheres em Vitória da Conquista - BA, entre os anos 1950 e 1965, de como a moda está relacionada com a vida de mulheres que viviam longe das grandes centros urbanos, numa realidade interiorana, em um período de poucos recursos e de acesso limitado à informação de moda. É lembrar, também, como as mulheres de diferentes classes sociais se vestiam no momento. Não apenas falar sobre a dama da sociedade, mas sim falar de como a trabalhadora, a vendedora da pequena loja da esquina, a dona de casa, a costureira se relacionavam com a moda. Para tanto, buscamos mostrar nesta pesquisa como as práticas vestimentares estão intimamente relacionadas com o papel que a mulher desempenhava na sociedade da época. Mostramos quais foram os principais influenciadores da moda na cidade, como revistas, desfiles, concursos de beleza e eventos sociais. Procuramos retratar quem foram as principais costureiras locais, as áreas comerciais e como o binômio produção/consumo constituem-se em marcas simbólicas de distinção. A abordagem adotada na presente investigação teve como sustentação metodológica a pesquisa histórica, em que privilegiamos a análise de imagens fotográficas, ancorada na história oral, e análise de outros documentos secundários como jornais e revistas da época. Do cruzamento do documento fotográfico com outras fontes complementares é que podemos reconstruir as práticas sociais e práticas vestimentares das conquistenses.