Workers, lifestyle, healthcare and progress – how l’Humanité came to acquire its socialist outlook (1904-1914)

Résumé 0

Examining the newspaper l’Humanité (founded by Jean Jaurès) proves crucial to understand how the environment, healthcare and work intertwined at the beginning of the 20th century. The daily newspaper was an invaluable observatory of society and of the representations that were supposed to be working to recompose the workers’ movement. In the abundance of articles that appeared, labour played a key role. Working-class living conditions were often associated with it. Subjects that today would be associated with the environment appear to be contextual elements for the progress of societies and its components, science, industry, cooperation and social welfare. If the struggle for hegemony between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the driving force behind change, progress itself seems to be placed in an overhanging position, beyond the reach of criticism of the damage done by capitalism. The issues of growth and environmental damage, which, today, tend to be often be linked together, were decorrelated.