Work and Life in the Early Industrial City: Social Economy of Cotton Production, Carlisle, 1838–1861*

Abstract

The discussion is focused on changes in the structure of the cotton industry and their effects on social and political life in Carlisle in the years from 1838 to 1861. The geographic framework of these changes is sketched out by investigating the interdependencies between factory locations in the city and the spatial formation of degraded working-class suburbs. Carlisle’s cotton industry was marked to a large degree by a twofold division between (a) spinning in factories and (b) weaving on the basis of outwork in both free and bound loomshops. Detailed descriptions of workers’ demographic characteristics in these two production environments are provided, with special reference to handloom weavers. The handloom weavers played a crucial role in these years in shaping political responses to the low wages and economic hardship faced by the working class in Carlisle. The marches and other public demonstrations associated with these responses are analysed in relation to the morphology of the city. The paper ends with a brief reflection on the role of urban space as a locus of political ferment and class formation in nineteenth-century industrial capitalism.