ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an introductory analysis of the socioeconomic character and political and cultural identity of each city: Liverpool, Lyon and Munich. It examines a brief survey of trade union development within them between 1880 and 1900, focusing on the role of local coordination and intertrade union bodies. The chapter explains a case study of railway workers and tramway workers – occupations of particular significance to large cities. The predicament of the tramway workers is an appropriate reminder of the ambivalent identities on option to workers. Liverpool grew inexorably, although by 1880–1900 there was considerable outmigration from increasingly unattractive inner residential areas. In Lyon and Munich, inmigration was preponderantly short-distance, essentially from adjacent rural and out-working areas, from a hinterland of shared culture, religion and regional identity. The 'melting-pot' of inmigration gave Liverpool its unique identity, a construction riven with considerable cultural, sectarian and political divisions.
