Richard Oastler, Factory Legislation and the Working-Class Family

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that much recent writing on the development of the ideology of domesticity within the working class and the role in this of struggles for protective legislation suffers from undue neglect of class interests in the construction of family life. As a contribution to a fuller account of the interaction of class and gender concerns, a case study is presented of the analysis of the family, gender and laissez-faire capitalism contained in the writing of Richard Oastler, a leading figure in the British Ten Hours Movement of the 1830s and 1840s.