Materializing Inequality: The Archaeology of Tourism Laborers in Turn-of-the-Century Los Angeles

Abstract

This article traces the historical marginalization of tourism workers in Southern California, a region made popular in the late 1800s for its numerous leisurely activities. Workers employed in Southern California's hotel industry continue to face discrimination, low wages, and dangerous and environmentally hazardous work conditions, policies that originated during the development of the region's tourism industry. Using California's most popular tourist site from 1893 to 1936, Mount Lowe Resort and Railway, as a case study, this article examines the historical spatial, ideological, and legal factors that have contributed to the contemporary stratification of Los Angeles' hotel laborers. It concludes with an emphasis on how archaeological and archival research can be used to help modern day tourism laborers gain the attention and benefits they so direly deserve.

Conceptualising human and non-human marginalisation in tourism

“…There are always some actors who are more marginalised than others, and their power (or lack thereof) determines their level of marginalisation. In tourism-related businesses, some employees are marginalised due to their job conditions, such as non-contract jobs, long hours work, unpaid overtime, lack of training, dangerous work conditions, and a high dependence on tips and service charges (Barnett, 2008; Camp, 2011). Yet, there are others who really want but cannot get tourism-related jobs (Stewart and Bath, 2017).…”

Beside the Seaside. The Archaeology of the Twentieth-Century English Seaside Holiday Experience: A Phenomenological Context

“…Materially-based approaches to the already well-investigated social history of tourism can add a great deal to the analysis of a topic that may superficially be about having fun, but which also, as John Urry among others notes (2002) has implications for the study of consumerism, consumption and capitalism, class, exploitation and inequality (eg. Camp 2011). Drawing on Sefryn Penrose's survey (2007), the archaeological focus of this study is on what Harrison and Schofield (2010, 45) term 'people, profit and pleasure'.…”

Auditing the War on Terror: The Watson Institute's Costs of War Project

“…Labor archaeologists are connecting the past and making it relevant to the present with the idea that archaeology can help instigate social action and help social justice causes. For instance, Stacey Camp's (2011) study shows the marginalization of tourism workers in southern California in the late 1800s and early 1900s and demonstrates how workers today continue to face discrimination, low wages, and dangerous and environmentally hazardous job conditions. Blair Mountain in West Virginia, the site of the largest armed labor insurrection in U.S. history in 1921, has become a battlefield once again.…”