Catalogue Number
NMLH.1996.41
Object Name
Badge
Title
AEU AMALGAMATED ENGINEERING UNION.EDUCATE ORGANISE CONTROL
Place
UK
Date
1943
Description
The Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) was established in 1920. It was formed by the amalgamation of toolmakers and eight other engineering unions. This badge was produced in 1943.
The AEU, like some other big industrial unions, such as the National Union of Railwaymen, saw a large, well-informed, organized membership as crucial to their success, and the badge's motto gave a concise expression of the union's intent: Educate, Organise, Control. The slogan may well be a reference to the idea of workers control of industry under socialism. By 1926, the year of the General Strike, the AEU and the transport unions were a force to be reckoned with.
The first button badges, made possible by the invention of celluloid, were produced in America in 1896, and the earliest British trade union and political button badges were produced sometime between 1900-1910.
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