“Dark Satanic Mills”: The Problems of Industrialization
History 104 / February 22, 2013

I. From farmyards to the factories
    A. Regulated time
    B. Unregulated working conditions
          1. Why child labor?
          2. Contrast: factory work vs. farm work
    C. The filthiness of urban life
    D. The loss of social (and religious) orientation
II. Responses by British authorities
    A. Increasing support for the liberal agenda
          1. The Great Reform Bill (1832)
          2. Repeal of the Corn Laws (1846)
    B. Limited responsiveness to workers’ demands
          1. The Peterloo massacre (1819)
          2. The Factory Act (1833)
          3. The Poor Law (1834): guardians and workhouses
III. Working-class activism
    A. Political activism: Chartism
    B. Economic activism: the trade union movement
    C. Socialism: a more comprehensive agenda
          1. Utopian socialism in New Lanark & New Harmony
          2. Louis Blanc’s agenda: government-financed socialism
          3. Marx’s “scientific” analysis of class conflict in history