Jean Maitron

Jean Maitron (1910–1987) was a French historian specialist of the labour movement.

Maitron, however, is best known for his Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français (DBMOF or, more currently, Le Maitron), a comprehensive biographical dictionary of figures from the French workers' movement which was continued after his death, as well as a study of anarchism, History of anarchism in France (first ed. 1951), 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 (1971), United Kingdom (1979 and 1986), Japan (1979), Germany (1990), China (1985), Morocco (1998), United States from 1848 to 1922 (2002), a transnational one about the Komintern (2001) and the most recently published about Algeria (2006), almost all published at the Éditions de l'Atelier.

Maitron wrote in 1950 a study on the anarchism movement in France and wrote a complementary study of Paul Delessale, an anarcho-syndicalist. He retired in 1976 and was nominated as chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1982 and a chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 1985.