Chair of Economic and Social History Michelle Watzig M.A.

The PhD project investigates the impact of structural change in seafaring (c. 1880s to 1920s) on the social and economic situation of British seamen. By referring to historical research of stereotypes, the project analyses stereotypes of British and Asian seafarers to gain insights into perceptions of maritime labour as well as the status of seamen. 

The transition from sailing vessels to steamships had not only economic effects but also influenced the professional profile and self- and external perception of seafarers: sailors became seamen whose tasks, especially in the engine and boiler rooms, progressively resembled land-based occupations. For work below deck, British shipping companies increasingly recruited non-British seamen, particularly from Asia.

British seamen perceived Asian seamen as a threat to their economic and social position, a concern that was publicly debated. In the early 20^th century, for example, the National Sailors and Firemen’s Union used its journal The Seaman to launch a campaign against Chinese seamen. Shipowners and their representative organisation, the Shipping Federation, on the other hand, often advocated employing Asian seamen, justifying their position partly by claiming that Chinese seamen were “more sober and industrious”¹ than British seamen.

Looking at the arguments on both sides, it becomes clear that they relied on stereotypes, such as the prejudice of the “industrious Chinese.” The aim of the PhD project is to deconstruct these stereotypes by drawing on historical research of stereotypes. Therefore, stereotypes about British seamen, such as the “English sailor as a drunkard,” are examined alongside stereotypes of Asian seamen, as the latter can—due to the mirroring effect of stereotypes—shed light on British seamen’s self- and external perception. The hypothesis underlying the doctoral project is that Asian seamen did not cause the challenges faced by British seamen around 1900, but made them visible, leading British seamen to express their anxieties through xenophobic discourse.

For the PhD project, archival research is conducted in the United Kingdom (London, Coventry and Liverpool).

¹N.A.: Checking the Chinese. Some Consideration for British Sailors, in: The Seaman 4/1 (February 1908), p. 3.

Michelle is a doctoral researcher in social and economic history at Heidelberg University. Her research focuses on the visibility and recognition of labour, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between British and Asian seafarers between 1880 and the 1920s.

After completing a Franco-German bachelor's degree in history at the University of Bamberg and the Université de Strasbourg, she earned her Master of Arts in History at Heidelberg University in 2022. She is particularly interested in labour history, New Naval History, and Global History in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Michelle enjoys working in international contexts, which led her to complete an Erasmus exchange at the Université de Liège in Belgium during her undergraduate studies. Additionally, since 2021, she has worked multiple times as a Bilingual Assistant at the German School of Middlebury College in the USA. For her research, she regularly travels to London. 

Since 2022, Michelle has been a research assitant at the Chair of Social and Economic History. She especially enjoys teaching. In her seminars, she focuses on topics such as Human-Animal Studies and New Naval History. It has been a pleasure for her to conduct an Erasmus Teaching Mobility at the Università degli Studi di Milano in early 2025. 

In 2023, she began supporting the public outreach of the project “Zwischen Unsichtbarkeit, Repression und lesbischer Emanzipation – Frauenliebende* Frauen im deutschen Südwesten 1945 bis 1980er Jahre”. 

Winter Semester 2025/26
Seminar: „Officers and Gentlemen“ and „True British Sailors“ – Masculinity and Seafring in Britain during the long 19th Century

Practice Class: From the Box to the Stalls – A Social History of Opera Since the 17th Century

• Economic and Social History, Labour History
• Maritime History (New Naval History)
• Global History
• Gender Studies
• Human-Animal Studies