The Making of the English Working Class


Book Description

This account of artisan and working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, adds an important dimension to our understanding of the nineteenth century. E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation and who yet created a culture and political consciousness of great vitality.




A Short History of the British Working Class Movement: 1789-1848


Book Description

This volume 1 of the set A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937). The volumes reprinted here provide a general narrative of the history of the working class movement in all its main aspects - Trade Unions, Socialism and Co-operatives. The historical focus is upon the latter part of the eighteenth century, set against a background of economic and social history.




A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937)


Book Description

This is volume 2 of the set A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937). The volumes reprinted here provide a general narrative of the history of the working class movement in all its main aspects - Trade Unions, Socialism and Co-operatives. The historical focus is upon the latter part of the eighteenth century, set against a background of economic and social history.




Short History of the British Working Class Movement


Book Description

The volumes reprinted here provide a general narrative of the history of the working class movement in all its main aspects - Trade Unions, Socialism and Co-operatives. The historical focus is upon the latter part of the eighteenth century, set against a background of economic and social history.




Short History of British Working Class Movement


Book Description

This is volume 3 of the set A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937). The volumes reprinted here provide a general narrative of the history of the working class movement in all its main aspects - Trade Unions, Socialism and Co-operatives. The historical focus is upon the latter part of the eighteenth century, set against a background of economic and social history.







Working Class History


Book Description

History is not made by kings, politicians, or a few rich individuals--it is made by all of us. From the temples of ancient Egypt to spacecraft orbiting Earth, workers and ordinary people everywhere have walked out, sat down, risen up, and fought back against exploitation, discrimination, colonization, and oppression. Working Class History presents a distinct selection of people's history through hundreds of "on this day in history" anniversaries that are as diverse and international as the working class itself. Women, young people, people of color, workers, migrants, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, older people, the unemployed, home workers, and every other part of the working class have organized and taken action that has shaped our world, and improvements in living and working conditions have been won only by years of violent conflict and sacrifice. These everyday acts of resistance and rebellion highlight just some of those who have struggled for a better world and provide lessons and inspiration for those of us fighting in the present. Going day by day, this book paints a picture of how and why the world came to be as it is, how some have tried to change it, and the lengths to which the rich and powerful have gone to maintain and increase their wealth and influence.




The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844


Book Description

The Condition of the Working Class in England is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels. Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. He shows, for example, that in large industrial cities mortality from disease, as well as death-rates for workers were higher than in the countryside. In cities like Manchester and Liverpool mortality from smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough was four times as high as in the surrounding countryside, and mortality from convulsions was ten times as high as in the countryside. The overall death-rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average (one in 32.72 and one in 31.90 and even one in 29.90, compared with one in 45 or one in 46). An interesting example shows the increase in the overall death-rates in the industrial town of Carlisle where before the introduction of mills (1779–1787), 4,408 out of 10,000 children died before reaching the age of five, and after their introduction the figure rose to 4,738. Before the introduction of mills, 1,006 out of 10,000 adults died before reaching 39 years old, and after their introduction the death rate rose to 1,261 out of 10,000.