The rise and fall of the healthy factory: the politics of industrial health in Britain, 1914-60

Abstract

The factory was an iconic symbol of modernity in early twentieth-century Britain. Epitomising the triumph of rationalisation and technological innovation, factories were lambasted by critics as hazardous and dehumanising environments which robbed work of meaning and destroyed workers' health. The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory reveals how the interwar health movement, modernist architecture and new forms of advertising attempted to refashoin factories into sites of health improvement, and investigates why these plans never came to fruition. Focussing on the role of the Trades Union Congress, it analyses the politics of industrial health, studying the negotiations which took place between the government, the unions, employers and the medical profession as efforts were made to actualise the vision of the healthy factory and implement a national occupational health service. This book makes a major contribution to debates on health education, the NHS, industrial illness and injury, industrial relations and British politics.