Liberty's Dawn
A People's History of the Industrial Revolution
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
"Emma Griffin gives a new and powerful voice to the men and women whose blood and sweat greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution" (Tim Hitchcock, author of Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London).
This "provocative study" looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class (The New Yorker). The era didn't just bring about misery and poverty. On the contrary, Emma Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom.
This rich personal account focuses on the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, rather than its economic and political histories. In the tradition of bestselling books by Liza Picard, Judith Flanders, and Jerry White, Griffin gets under the skin of the period and creates a cast of colorful characters, including factory workers, miners, shoemakers, carpenters, servants, and farm laborers.
"Through the 'messy tales' of more than 350 working-class lives, Emma Griffin arrives at an upbeat interpretation of the Industrial Revolution most of us would hardly recognize. It is quite enthralling." —The Oldie magazine
"A triumph, achieved in fewer than 250 gracefully written pages. They persuasively purvey Griffin's historical conviction. She is intimate with her audience, wooing it and teasing it along the way." —The Times Literary Supplement
"An admirably intimate and expansive revisionist history." —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It wasn't all Bleak House and Oliver Twist. According to historian Griffin (A Short History of the British Industrial Revolution), the negative impact of the Industrial Revolution has been grossly exaggerated and misconstrued. Through a close reading of over 300 autobiographies written by English workers from 1760 1900, Griffin unfurls a mostly convincing reinterpretation peopled by empowered workers newly able to carve out enough personal freedom to maintain control over their destinies. The author delves into three realms work, love (and sex), and culture (education and religion) to craft a complex picture. Her liberal use of textual excerpts emphasizes and personalizes the effect of this socioeconomic revolution on individuals and families. Men, women, and children all worked, and though the labor wasn't easy, they saw even difficult industrial jobs as tremendous economic opportunities. Men enjoyed steadier work and correspondingly steadier wages luxuries mostly unfamiliar to the generation of working men before them and mass production spurred urbanization and a concomitant coming together of diverse ideas. Many working people sought education for self-improvement and advancement, embraced nonconformist religious denominations to exercise independent choice in spiritual matters, and participated in political movements to push for the rights of the working man. All in all, an admirably intimate and expansive revisionist history.
