perhaps outside your field, but a matter of local interest: what actually happened in Lancashire during the Cotton Famine caused...
fruityyamenrunner asked: perhaps outside your field, but a matter of local interest: what actually happened in Lancashire during the Cotton Famine caused by the American Civil War? Everything I have read has either been whiggish [or socialist] history [the workers naturally were in solidarity with the Union's cause] or bland economic history stuff, so the impression I have is 'not much, people just got poorer lol'. But maybe you know more?
Uh. God DAMN is that out of my wheelhouse. I know “socioeconomic history of northern English textile workers with cutting insights, revealing details, and thorough archive work” was the great E.P. Thompson’s specialty, but scanning through the index of Making of the English Working Class I can’t find much that seems to go past the 1820s.
I’d be shocked if one of his compatriots or acolytes didn’t treat the subject though, but beyond that beats me. Maybe don’t be so quick to dismiss the socialist histories, the CPHG crowd did some good work and “19th century English workers were tending towards workers’ solidarity and socialism" is not a ridiculous conclusion to draw.