This 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 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.
"A totally compelling account of the Industrial Revolution. Through a remarkable range of life stories, Emma Griffin opens up this extraordinary epoch of change, providing a brilliant chronicle of its social history and upending traditional interpretations in the process. With her light touch and rigorous scholarship, Griffin provides an important and rewarding overview of this defining moment in
Tristram Hunt, author of Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City
"Emma Griffin's brilliant use of the voices of the poor that survive in memoirs allows us to grasp the ambiguities and complexities of their encounter with the momentous changes of the Industrial Revolution as never before. It was not simply a time of hardship and disruption but of opportunity and release from social constraints. Griffin's stylish and accessible account marks a major shift in our
Martin Daunton, author of Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1
"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
