Constant turmoil : the politics of industrial life in nineteenth-century New England / Mary H. Blewett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blewett, Mary H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Textile industry--New England--History.

Textile industry.

Economic conditions.

History.

New England--Economic conditions.

New England.

Physical Description:

x, 521 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2000]

Summary:

Part narrative, part analysis, this book reconstructs the complex history of the southeastern New England textile industry during the nineteenth century. Mary H. Blewett takes a fresh look at the process of industrialization from the point of view of management as well as labor and reinterprets the struggle between the two in terms of class, culture, and power. Highlighting the role of contingency and human agency in the shaping of historical events, she traces the efforts of the legendary Borden family and their allies not only to build their own private empire but to dominate the national market in print cloth. At the same time, she examines the shifting fortunes of a labor force striving to accommodate newly arrived immigrants, adapt to new technologies, and contest the control of the mill owners.

Blewett has been a pioneer in analyzing the role of gender in industrialization, and this book carries that work forward. She shows how changing meanings of manhood and womanhood, nationality and race, altered the course of American labor politics, as immigrant workers from Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Quebec brought their own political and cultural traditions into the New England mills.

What emerges is a richly textured tale involving business scoundrels, high-minded reformers, radical agitators, sober-minded accommodationists, and assertive women activists -- all engaged in a dynamic political struggle to control the destiny of an industry that would not survive the next century.

Contents:

Prologue: Unlikely Acquaintances 1

1 The Fall River Patrimony: Those Legendary Bordens, 1799-1865 18

2 Gender Politics and Labor Reform in the Protest Heritages of Antebellum New England 45

3 British Immigrant Textile Workers and Their Class Conscious Legacies, 1820-1865 76

4 Wait, Agitate, Work, and Wait: Gender Politics and Ten-Hour Reform, 1865-1874 102

5 To Dominate the National Market, 1866-1878 141

6 They Have Brought Their Horns with Them: Deference and Defiance, 1868-1875 177

7 A New Lancashire for the Northeast, 1876-1878 225

8 Struggling over Amalgamations or Trade Unions, 1879-1884 260

9 Piecing Up the Fall River System, 1885-1897 307

10 The Ascendancy of Trade Unions and Combinations, 1898-1906 338

Epilogue: The Escape of Al Priddy, the Death of M. C. D. Borden, and the Burnley Reunion 388

Critical Assessment of Primary Sources 392

Table 1 Personal taxable income in Fall River, 1867 403

Table 2 Cotton manufacturing data for Fall River, 1865 and 1875 404

Table 3 Comparative nativities of population, 1870 404

Table 4 United States cotton mills producing print cloth, 1880 404

Table 5 Characterists of 153 "works in a cotton mill" families, Fall River: Globe Village and Little Canada in Ward 1, 1870 405

Table 6 Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, 1875: Persons employed in cotton goods 408

Table 7 Total population: Percentages of foreign-born in leading Massachusetts manufacturing cities, 1875 408

Table 8 Comparative data on Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, 1870-1880 408

Table 9 Southern competition and the Massachusetts cotton textile industry 410

Table 10 British immigration to the United States, 1840-1905 410.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 413-490) and index.

ISBN:

1558492399

OCLC:

42772687