What does the term history from below mean?
Until recently, history was often regarded as solely a matter of what the powerful, the famous, and the wealthy thought and did. It was “history from above.” What ordinary people felt and what they tried to accomplish was regarded as insignificant, not even worth regarding as part of history. Recently, a student at a state university heard mentioned a large and dramatic general strike that had occurred in 1920 in his home town of Waterbury, Connecticut. He later wrote, “I live in the city that this incident occurred in and yet had never heard about it. When it was mentioned during the class lecture… it immediately aroused my curiosity. Upon looking into the matter, I found that there was nothing said in any of the books concerning Waterbury’s history (approximately 15 books included this period of time).” This part fo the life of his community had truly been “hidden from history.” Such disregard for the history of ordinary people has led to a movement for “history from below.” This m
