For the pioneering young women who walked into Singapore’s flatted factories in the 1960s and 1970s, assembly line work was more than just a job. It heralded the emergence of a generation of modern women and families in a time of rapid industrialisation and national development. Modernity for working class women in industry was a many-sided experience. They coped with family objections to factory work and the dual demands of unpaid domestic work and wage employment, including working the night shift. As dynamic human actors in the production process, they developed a sense of pride in their labour and a culture of work built upon friendships with co-workers, and punctuated by casual talk, gossip, laughter, and music.

About the speaker: Dr. Loh Kah Seng, Historian of Singapore, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia 

Loh Kah Seng is a historian of Singapore and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. He is interested in all things that happened in the history of a city. He is the author of the award-nominated Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore (NUS Press 2013) and Tuberculosis – The Singapore Experience, 1867-2018: Disease, Society and the State (with Hsu Li Yang, Routledge 2020). He runs Chronicles Research and Education, a research consultancy on the rich and varied heritages of Singapore – housing, industrial, medical, and culinary. 

Conducted in English. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Interested participants please register here.