Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, Series Number 2) - Softcover

Snell, K. D. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521335582 ISBN 13: 9780521335584

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Synopsis

This collection of inter-connected essays is concerned with the impact of social and economic change upon the rural labouring poor and artisans in England, and combines a sensitive understanding of their social priorities with innovative quantitative analysis. It is based on an impressive range of sources, and its particular significance arises from the pioneering use made of a largely neglected archival source - settlement records - to address questions of central importance in English social and economic history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Levels of employment, wage rates, poor relief, the sexual division of labour, the social consequences of enclosure, the decline of farm service and traditional apprenticeship, and th equality of family life are amongst the issues discussed in a profound re-assessment of a perennial problem: the standard of living (in its widest sense) of the labouring poor during the period of industrialisation. The author's conclusions challenge much of the prevailing orthodoxy, and his extensive use of literary and attitudinal material is closely integrated with the quantitative restatement of an interpretation that owes much to the older tradition of the Hammonds' Village Labourer.

About this title

Book Description:

Levels of employment, wage rates, welfare relief, sexual divisions of labor, apprenticeship patterns and seasonal economic fluctuations are included in this reassessment of the standard of living of rural labor during this period of England's industrialization.

About the Author:

K. D. M. Snell is Professor of Rural and Cultural History, Centre for English Local History, at the University of Leicester. His previous publications include Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900 (1985) and Rival Jerusalems: the Geography of Victorian Religion (2000).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0521335582
• ISBN 13: 9780521335584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 476