India: The early Congress movement: …president of the Congress, and William Wordsworth, principal of Elphinstone College, both appeared as observers. Most Britons in India, however, either ignored the Congress Party and its resolutions as the action and demands of a “microscopic minority” of India’s diverse millions or considered them the rantings of disloyal extremists. Despite…

William Wordsworth was an English poet whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the English Romantic movement. The principles he outlines in the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) were revolutionary. By seeking to compose poetry that

Sebastian Klonowic: Worek Judaszów (1600; “Judas’s Sack”), also in Polish, is a satiric and didactic work on the low life of Lublin. In the satirical and didactic Latin poem Victoria deorum (1587; “The Victory of the Gods”) Klonowic contends that true nobility depends not upon birth but…

work, in physics, measure of energy transfer that occurs when an object is moved over a distance by an external force at least part of which is applied in the direction of the displacement. If the force is constant, work may be computed by multiplying the length of the path by the component of the

Ford Madox Brown: His most famous picture, Work (1852–63), which can be seen as a Victorian social document, was first exhibited at a retrospective exhibition held in London (1865), for which he wrote the catalog. He also worked as a book illustrator with William Morris; produced stained glass, at, among other sites,…

work, in economics and sociology, the activities and labour necessary to the survival of society. What follows is a brief overview of work. For a discussion of the methods by which society structures the activities and labour necessary to its survival, see the history of the organization of work.

workaholism, compulsive desire to work. Workaholism is defined in various ways. In general, however, it is characterized by working excessive hours (beyond workplace or financial requirements), by thinking continually about work, and by a lack of work enjoyment, which are unrelated to actual

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Her other books included Work and Family in the USA: Critical Review and Research and Policy Agenda (1977), World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy (1995), Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management (1997), Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead (2015), and Think Outside the…

African dance: Work dances: Men who work together often celebrate a successful project with beer drinking and vigorous dances expressing their occupational skills. In Nigeria, Nupe fishermen are renowned for their net throwing, which they formalize into dance patterns, and young Irigwe farmers on the Jos Plateau…

Protestant ethic, in sociological theory, the value attached to hard work, thrift, and efficiency in one’s worldly calling, which, especially in the Calvinist view, were deemed signs of an individual’s election, or eternal salvation. German sociologist Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic and the

labour, in economics, the general body of wage earners. It is in this sense, for example, that one speaks of “organized labour.” In a more special and technical sense, however, labour means any valuable service rendered by a human agent in the production of wealth, other than accumulating and

electronic work function, energy (or work) required to withdraw an electron completely from a metal surface. This energy is a measure of how tightly a particular metal holds its electrons—that is, of how much lower the electron’s energy is when present within the metal than when completely free.

work hardening, in metallurgy, increase in hardness of a metal induced, deliberately or accidentally, by hammering, rolling, drawing, or other physical processes. Although the first few deformations imposed on metal by such treatment weaken it, its strength is increased by continued deformations.

workers’ compensation, social welfare program through which employers bear some of the cost of their employees’ work-related injuries and occupational diseases. Workers’ compensation was first introduced in Germany in 1884, and by the middle of the 20th century most countries in the world had some

Missy Elliott: …a third Grammy for “Work It,” a single from her 2002 album Under Construction. Her fifth studio album, This Is Not a Test! (2003), included features by rappers Jay-Z and Nelly as well as an appearance by Mary J. Blige, but it did not produce hits as her others…

aesthetics: Marxist aesthetics: …Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (1936; The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) attempts to describe the changed experience of art in the modern world and sees the rise of Fascism and mass society as the culmination of a process of debasement, whereby art ceases to be a…

motion-picture technology: Picture editing: …from these copies, known as work prints, so that the original camera footage can remain undamaged and clean until the final negative cut. The work prints reproduce not only the footage shot but also the edge numbers that were photographically imprinted on the raw film stock. These latent edge numbers,…

Works Progress Administration (WPA), work program for the unemployed that was created in 1935 under U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Although critics called the WPA an extension of the dole or a device for creating a huge patronage army loyal to the Democratic Party, the stated purpose

work song, any song that belongs to either of two broad categories: songs used as a rhythmic accompaniment to a task and songs used to make a statement about work. Used by workers of innumerable occupations worldwide, work songs range from the simple hum of a solitary labourer to politically and

Hank Ballard: “Work with Me Annie”—which prompted a raft of answer songs, most notably “Roll with Me Henry” by Etta James—was opposed by radio programmers who disapproved of its “explicit lyrics.” However, it and the similarly criticized “Sexy Ways,” “Annie Had a Baby,” and “Annie’s Aunt Fannie”…

history of the organization of work, history of the methods by which society structures the activities and labour necessary to its survival. Work is essential in providing the basic physical needs of food, clothing, and shelter. But work involves more than the use of tools and techniques. Advances

H.G. Wells: Middle and late works: …by his second wife), and The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind (1932). At the same time he continued to publish works of fiction, in which his gifts of narrative and dialogue give way almost entirely to polemics. His sense of humour reappears, however, in the reminiscences of his Experiment…

repetitive strain injury (RSI), any of a broad range of conditions affecting muscles, tendons, tendon sheaths, nerves, or joints that result particularly from excessive and forceful use. Strain, rapid movement, or constrained or constricted posture may be other causes. Examples of repetitive strain

Martha McChesney Berry: …a day in a pioneering work-study program; the experience of work would supplement their vocational training.

Gary Plan, an educational system instituted in 1907 in Gary, Indiana. It was part of the larger scientific management movement in the early part of the 20th century that tried to increase efficiency in manufacturing through increased separation of worker roles and duties as well as through

Louisa May Alcott: Work: A Story of Experience (1873), based on Alcott’s own struggles, tells the story of a poor girl trying to support herself by a succession of menial jobs. The Gothic tales and thrillers that Alcott published pseudonymously between 1863 and 1869 were collected and republished…

monopoly and competition: Workable competition: Since the market performance of industries varies along with their market characteristics, efforts have been made to devise some practical standard for identifying the sorts of market structure that engender socially satisfactory performance in a given industry. The term workable…

workaholism, compulsive desire to work. Workaholism is defined in various ways. In general, however, it is characterized by working excessive hours (beyond workplace or financial requirements), by thinking continually about work, and by a lack of work enjoyment, which are unrelated to actual

hand tool: Workbench and vise: The workbench and vise form an organic unit, for the vise is a fixture that is either part of the carpenter’s bench or is attached to the machinist’s bench.

ant: Natural history: …a colony: queens, males, and workers. Male ants play no part in everyday nest activities. They live only for a short time, occur in limited numbers, and are virtual parasites of the colony, which must feed them. The fertile female, the queen, performs only one task: egg laying. The life…

beekeeping: Worker bees: Worker bees live about six weeks during the active season but may live for several months if they emerge as adults in the fall and spend the winter in the cluster. As the name implies, worker bees do all the work of the…

De Stijl: The Worker’s Housing Estate in Hoek van Holland (1924–27), designed by Oud, expresses the same clarity, austerity, and order found in a Mondrian painting. Gerrit Rietveld, another architect associated with De Stijl, also applied its stylistic principles in his work; the Schröder House in Utrecht (1924),…

Vietnam: Political process: …and 1992 constitutions institutionalized the Vietnamese Communist Party as the sole source of leadership for the state and society. The 1992 document, however, delegated much more authority to the president and to the cabinet; they were given the task of running the government, while the party became responsible for overall…

Hungary: Political developments: …join them in a single Workers’ Party, from which recalcitrants were expelled.

Daily Worker, newspaper that, under a variety of names, has generally reflected the views of the Communist Party of the United States. The Daily Worker, its origins traceable to the 1920s, was variously the organ and the “semiofficial” voice of the party, and its readers across the middle of the

worker-priest, in the Roman Catholic church, member of a movement, especially in France and Belgium after World War II, seeking to reach the working classes, who had become largely alienated from the church. The worker-priests set aside their clerical garb and left their clerical dwellings to take

Sebastião Salgado: That same year he published Workers, an epic portrait of the working class. Four years later Terra: Struggle of the Landless received tremendous critical acclaim. The collection of black-and-white photographs taken between 1980 and 1996 documents the plight of impoverished workers in Brazil; the work includes a preface by Portuguese…

Aruna Roy: …Rajasthan, and set up the Workers and Peasants Strength Union (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan; MKSS), an organization devoted to empowering workers and peasants and increasing the accountability of local governments.

Friedrich Ebert: …derived its authority from the Workers and Soldiers Council, which claimed to speak for Germany and the German Republic but in truth had been elected rather arbitrarily by the factories and regiments of Berlin alone. Ebert was determined to place the power of the Council of People’s Representatives and the…

George Gissing: The first of these, Workers in the Dawn, appeared in 1880, to be followed by 21 others. Between 1886 and 1895 he published one or more novels every year. He also wrote Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1898), a perceptive piece of literary criticism.

Itzhak Ben-Zvi: …to the formation of the Poale Zion World Federation in 1907. He settled in Palestine and in 1908 helped found ha-Shomer, a self-defense organization for Jewish agricultural settlements. In 1909 he founded in Jerusalem the first Hebrew high school in Palestine.

Communist Party of the United States of America: …create the legal and aboveground Workers Party of America (WPA). When the United Toilers of America, a group that adopted the same tactics as the WPA, combined with the latter organization, the party renamed itself the Workers (Communist) Party, finally settling on the name Communist Party of the United States…

adult education: Adult-education agencies and institutions: …by such organizations as “workers’ academies” in Finland, “people’s high schools” in Germany and Austria, “adult education centres” in Great Britain, and “people’s universities” in The Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland. The distinguishing characteristics of these institutions are that they

Vladimir Lenin: Saving the Revolution: …guided the strategy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, commanded by Trotsky. Although the economy had collapsed, he managed to mobilize sufficient resources to sustain the Red Army and the industrial workers. But above all it was his political leadership that saved the day for the Soviets. By proclaiming…

Izvestiya: …as an organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. After the October Revolution that year, control of Izvestiya passed from the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and the paper’s main offices were moved to Moscow. Izvestiya grew rapidly to a circulation of…

Spain: Labour and taxation: …and the Workers’ Commissions (Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras; CC.OO.), which is affiliated with the Communist Party and is also structured by sectional and territorial divisions. Other unions include the Workers’ Syndical Union (Unión Sindical Obrera; USO), which has a strong Roman Catholic orientation; the Independent Syndicate of Civil…

workers’ compensation, social welfare program through which employers bear some of the cost of their employees’ work-related injuries and occupational diseases. Workers’ compensation was first introduced in Germany in 1884, and by the middle of the 20th century most countries in the world had some

Guild Socialism: …a movement that called for workers’ control of industry through a system of national guilds operating in an implied contractual relationship with the public. The Guild Socialist movement developed in England and had its main impact there in the first two decades of the 20th century.

economic planning: Yugoslavia: …state-owned enterprises was given to workers’ councils that would decide their own production programs according to profitability, with prices subject to negotiation. Investments were partly controlled by the enterprises themselves out of profits or by the central planners, partly financed from bank credits. But lack of effective central control, and…

May Day, day commemorating the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement, observed in many countries on May 1. In the United States and Canada a similar observance, known as Labor Day, occurs on the first Monday of September. In 1889 an international federation of

Poland: Communist Poland: A Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) arose and sought to bridge the gap between the intelligentsia, which had been isolated in 1968, and the workers, who had received no support in 1970. The names of such dissidents as Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik became internationally known. Other…

Albert Mansbridge: …the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA; originally called An Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working Men). The WEA was quickly recognized by most British universities, and in 1905 Mansbridge abandoned clerical work to become its full-time general secretary.

Léon Jouhaux: …and established in 1948 the Force Ouvrière (“Workers’ Force”), which stood between the communists and Roman Catholic labour organizations. In 1949 he helped to found the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and in 1951 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pablo Iglesias: He also headed the socialist-affiliated Unión General de Trabajadores (General Union of Workers), organized in 1888.

Daniel De Leon: …created another schismatic body, the Workers’ International Industrial Union, which failed.

Workers’ Opposition, in the history of the Soviet Union, a group within the Communist Party that achieved prominence in 1920–21 as a champion of workers’ rights and trade union control over industry. Its defeat established a precedent for suppressing dissent within the party, thus enabling Joseph

Itamar Franco: …mean victory for the popular Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores; PT), while the left wanted to milk the ongoing corruption scandal. Business interests sought to avoid postponement of a debate concerning reform of the 1988 constitution. Franco thus remained in office through the 1994 presidential election, which was won by…

Ethiopia: Land reform and famine: In 1984 the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia was formed, with Mengistu as secretary-general, and in 1987 a new parliament inaugurated the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, with Mengistu as president.

Spain: The Civil War: …Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista; POUM), which rejected the Popular Front in favour of a workers’ government, set off a rebellion in Barcelona in May 1937. The communists, Republicans, and anti-Caballero socialists used this as an excuse to oust Largo Caballero, who proved insufficiently pliable…

Turkey: The ascendancy of the right, 1961–71: …a socialist political party, the Workers’ Party of Turkey (WPT; 1961); and an armed guerrilla movement, the Turkish People’s Liberation Army (1970). These and similar groups espoused anticapitalist and anti-Western doctrines, and their followers, particularly in the universities, often supported them by violent action. The violence of the left was…

Edvard Kardelj: …of a theory known as socialist self-management, which served as the basis of Yugoslavia’s political and economic system and distinguished it from the Soviet system. In foreign affairs he pioneered the concept of nonalignment for Yugoslavia between the West and the Soviet Union.

anarchism: Anarchism in Spain: …set up a syndicalist organization, Workers’ Solidarity (Solidaridad Obrera), in 1907. Solidaridad Obrera quickly spread throughout Catalonia, and, in 1909, when the Spanish army tried to conscript Catalan reservists to fight against the Riffs in Morocco, it called a general strike. The work was followed by a week of largely…

Spain: Labour and taxation: …were fleshed out in the Workers’ Statute of 1980 and the Organic Law of Trade Union Freedom, which went into effect in 1985. The Workers’ Statute eliminated government involvement in labour relations, leaving negotiations to unions and management. Within firms, elected delegates or workers’ committees deal with management on issues…

Léon Jouhaux: …and established in 1948 the Force Ouvrière (“Workers’ Force”), which stood between the communists and Roman Catholic labour organizations. In 1949 he helped to found the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and in 1951 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Spain: Labour and taxation: …the Workers’ Syndical Union (Unión Sindical Obrera; USO), which has a strong Roman Catholic orientation; the Independent Syndicate of Civil Servants (Confederación Sindical Independiente de Funcionarios); the Basque Workers’ Solidarity (Euzko Langilleen Alkartasuna–Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos; ELA-STV), which is independent but has ties to the Basque Nationalist Party; and…

Italy: Economic stagnation and labor militancy in the 1960s and ’70s: In 1970, legislation—the Statute of the Workers—ratified these developments and established rights never before codified in law. In 1975 most pay scales were indexed to inflation on a quarterly basis for wage and salary earners, thus guaranteeing the big pay raises of the previous few years. Jobs too…

workfare, form of social welfare program requiring able-bodied adults to work. In 1994 various U.S. states were already experimenting with workfare programs when Pres. Bill Clinton proposed a similar national scheme, including a welfare-payment cutoff after two years, coupled with aggressive

workhouse, institution to provide employment for paupers and sustenance for the infirm, found in England from the 17th through the 19th century and also in such countries as the Netherlands and in colonial America. The Poor Law of 1601 in England assigned responsibility for the poor to parishes,

John Arden: …he captured in his play The Workhouse Donkey (1963). He studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and at Edinburgh College of Art, where fellow students performed his comedy All Fall Down (1955), about the construction of a railway. He continued to write plays while working as an architectural assistant…

education: The Southern colonies: …the creation of a “workhouse school” at James City to which each county was to commit two children of the age of six or over. There, besides being reared as Anglicans, they were to be “instructed in honest and profitable trades and manufactures as also to avoid sloth and…

working dog, any of various breeds of dog bred as guard, herding, draft, or rescue animals. Breeds range from medium to large, but all are sturdy and muscular, intelligent and loyal. Guard breeds include the Akita, boxer, bullmastiff, Doberman pinscher, giant and standard schnauzers, Great Dane,

Australian literature: Nationalism and expansion: Katharine Susannah Prichard’s realism in Working Bullocks (1926) and in Coonardoo (1929), her sympathetic portrait of an Aboriginal woman, was of a more romantic nature. For others, such as Kylie Tennant and Eleanor Dark, realism served social and historical ends.

accounting: The balance sheet: …as net current assets, or working capital.

class consciousness: …the historical mission of the working class (to destroy capitalism and realize the socialist revolution) and its understanding thereof. The problem of false consciousness has encouraged an elitist streak in Marxism.

clothing and footwear industry: Modern developments: …Asian factory workers have better working and living conditions than those obtained during the 1920s and ’30s in the United States and Europe. In some cases Asian plant facilities are superior in working conditions and productivity to contemporary U.S. and western European factories.

working dog, any of various breeds of dog bred as guard, herding, draft, or rescue animals. Breeds range from medium to large, but all are sturdy and muscular, intelligent and loyal. Guard breeds include the Akita, boxer, bullmastiff, Doberman pinscher, giant and standard schnauzers, Great Dane,

Les Murray: The essays in A Working Forest (1997) indict academia for making poetry inaccessible to the average reader and give vent to Murray’s dislike of modern poetic forms. Murray also presented the work of five leading but little-known Australian poets in Fivefathers (1995). In Killing the Black Dog: A…

Carly Simon: …which she also sang, in Working Girl (1988). She also scored music for the films Postcards from the Edge (1990) and This Is My Life (1992).

Lizzie Borden: …and produced the 1986 film Working Girls, a feminist docudrama that attempts to de-eroticize the subject of prostitution. Its main character is a Yale University graduate who lives with a female lover and aspires to become a professional photographer. Borden’s next feature, the thriller Love Crimes (1991), was made in…

Native American: International developments: …and Social Council created the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. In 1985 this group began to draft an Indigenous rights document, a process that became quite lengthy in order to ensure adequate consultation with Indigenous nations and nongovernmental organizations. In 1993 the UN General Assembly declared 1995–2004 to be the…

hours of labour, the proportion of a person’s time spent at work. Hours of labour have declined significantly since the middle of the 19th century, with workers in advanced industrial countries spending far fewer hours per year in a given place of work than they did formerly. The movement for

There’s no question that working in retirement has become a trend—and for good reason. With so many people living longer, some retirees are eager to keep earning (and saving), as well as stay active. But continuing to work after you retire can be tricky. If you’re also collecting Social

memory: Working memory: Some aspects of memory can be likened to a system for storing and efficiently retrieving information. One system in particular—identified as “working memory” by the British psychologist Alan Baddeley—is essential for problem solving or the execution of complex cognitive tasks. It is characterized…

memory: Executive attention: Known as “working memory capacity,” this ability is measured most often through a test that requires people to commit a short list of items to memory while performing some other task. Thus, one form of the test might involve reading a series of sentences and then attempting…

Bruce Springsteen: Back with the E Street Band and into the 21st century: Working on a Dream, released in early 2009, concerns itself lyrically with thoughts of love and life, how fleeting both are and what it takes to stay the course. The music on the album is a much more sophisticated version of what Springsteen had done…

international payment and exchange: The OECD: The Working Party No. 3 of the organization’s Economic Committee, which is concerned with problems of money and exchange, has made significant contributions; it issued a very important report on balance-of-payments adjustment problems in 1966. At times the personnel of the Working Party has been much…

Beijing: Public and commercial buildings: …People’s Cultural Park is the Working People’s Cultural Palace (formerly the Temple of the Imperial Ancestors), where the tablets of the emperors were displayed. The temple, like the Imperial Palaces in style, was built in three stonework tiers, each with double eaves. On either side are two rows of verandas…

industrial glass: Viscosity: For instance, the working point, the temperature at which a gob of molten glass may be delivered to a forming machine, is equivalent to the temperature at which viscosity is 104 poise. The softening point, at which the glass may slump under its own weight, is defined by…

futures: The theory and practice of hedging: The rival hypothesis of Holbrook Working maintains that hedging is done with the expectation of a profit from a favourable change in the spot-futures price relation, to simplify business decisions, and to cut costs, and not for the sake of reducing risk alone. Hedgers, according to Working, are arbitrageurs;…

thought: Algorithms and heuristics: In the working-backward approach, the problem solver starts at the end and works toward the beginning. For example, suppose one is planning a trip from New York City to Paris. One wishes to arrive at one’s Parisian hotel. To arrive, one needs to take a taxi from…

thought: Algorithms and heuristics: In the working-forward approach, as the name implies, the problem solver tries to solve the problem from beginning to end. A trip from New York City to Boston might be planned simply by consulting a map and establishing the shortest route that originates in New York City…

Studs Terkel: …other books expanded the genre: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (1974) and American Dreams, Lost and Found (1980). Both poignantly reveal that, at times, many Americans felt demoralized and disillusioned by their lots in life. Working was made…

Workingmen’s Party, first labour-oriented political organization in the United States. Established first in Philadelphia in 1828 and then in New York in 1829, the party emanated out of the concerns of craftsmen and skilled journeymen over their low social and economic status. The “Workies” pressed

Workington, town (parish) and port in Allerdale district, administrative county of Cumbria, historic county of Cumberland, northwestern England. It is located on the Solway Firth where it joins the Irish Sea. The town lies at the mouth of the River Derwent. During the 19th century it grew up around

workers’ compensation, social welfare program through which employers bear some of the cost of their employees’ work-related injuries and occupational diseases. Workers’ compensation was first introduced in Germany in 1884, and by the middle of the 20th century most countries in the world had some

bullying: Workplace bullying: Bullying extends beyond young people and the schoolyard. Adults also experience bullying, and the workplace constitutes one prime venue for its occurrence. Much less research exists on bullying at work, as compared with that in schools, and some of the most developed research…

Works and Days, epic poem by the 8th-century-bce Greek writer Hesiod that is part almanac, part agricultural treatise, and part homily. It is addressed to his brother Perses, who by guile and bribery has already secured for himself an excessive share of their inheritance and is seeking to gain

Robert Adam: The Adam style: In 1773–79 they published The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam in two volumes. A third was published posthumously in 1822. In the preface to the first volume they explain their idea of “movement,” an essential aspect of the Adam style:

William Morris: The Kelmscott Press: …variant of Troy, in which The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was printed during the last years of Morris’s life. One of the greatest examples of the art of the printed book, Chaucer is the most ornate of the Kelmscott publications. Most of the other Kelmscott books were plain and simple,…

Søren Kierkegaard: Three dimensions of the religious life of Søren Kierkegaard: …most notably Kjerlighedens gjerninger (1847; Works of Love), Training in Christianity, Til selvprøvelse (1851; For Self-Examination), and Dømmer selv! (1851; Judge for Yourselves!), go beyond Religiousness B to what might be called “Religiousness C.” The focus is still on Christianity, but now Christ is no longer just the paradox to…