Jean Maitron

Who was Jean Maitron?

Jean Maitron was a French historian specialist of the labour movement. A pioneer of such historical studies in France, he introduced it to University and gave it its archives base, by creating in 1949 the Centre d'histoire du syndicalisme in the Sorbonne, which received important archives from activists such as Paul Delesalle, Émile Armand, Pierre Monatte, and others. He was the Center's secretary until 1969.

Maitron, however, is best known for his Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, a comprehensive biographical dictionary of figures from the French workers' movement which was continued after his death, and, last but not least, a study of anarchism, History of anarchism in France, which has become a classic. Starting with the 1789 French Revolution, it includes 103,000 entries gathered by 455 different authors working under Maitron's direction. The Maitron has now extended itself with international versions, treating Austria, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, China, Morocco, United States from 1848 to 1922, a transnational one about the Komintern and the most recently published about Algeria, almost all published at the Éditions de l'Atelier.