If I receive this grant, I will study the concept of workers' pride during the Luddite rebellion. I would visit various museums, working mills, and towns of longstanding fiber arts tradition. I want to study not only the machinery the workers used but also the textiles they produced. I would spend a week in Cambridge at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure looking at workers' autobiographies and other primary sources. However, I would spend the majority of my time in the Midlands of England, as it was the location of the rebellion.
Recommendations from: Susannah Ottaway, Bill North
As a weaver and knitter, I find it hard to believe that pride in the craft was not a significant factor in causing the rebellion. It is a subject I hope to pursue in my comps and in graduate school. It is also my hope that this fellowship would allow me to find evidence to test my hypothesis and to understand this historical phenomenon.
I would do this first through intense research at Cambridge University. The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure has agreed to help me in my pursuit. I would work in the Cambridge University Library and read workers' autobiographies and diaries. By reading their own words, I will learn more about the working class mindset. These resources are not available to me here at Carleton, and at Cambridge I will have access to more primary sources. The library catalogue is online, so I can go in with a list of what I wish to examine.
But I do not want to spend all my time in Cambridge's library. Part of the benefit of being in England is that I will have access to local histories, museums, and mills. As the towns I want to visit are known for their longstanding fiber arts traditions, it would be beneficial to see how histories written by local historians present the issue of pride in their regions, both in past and present.
In the museums and mills, I will see the actual equipment used by the workers. It will be useful for me to understand how the machinery changed with the Industrial Revolution. I would assume based on my research that the new machinery required less skill to operate and made items of poorer quality. I do not know this for certain but examining the looms, in addition to my research, will help me decide if skilled workers might have been offended by the new technology. As for the mills, I want to know how working in the mill changed the life of the worker. Before the Industrial Revolution, artisans worked at home with their families. How would the mill have changed the workers' lives, their family relations, and the pride in their work? Studying the mills will help to answer these questions.
Finally, I would examine how the primary sources, museums, and local histories talk about the rebellion. All three have limited space to state their case, and it is important to understand what they choose to explain and to omit, as these types of sources are frequently biased. I would also study how it is similar to or different from the historiography I have already read.
July 20th: Fly in to Manchester (Stay Here)
July 21st: Take Train to London, Brit. Museum (Stay Here)
July 22nd: Brit. Museum
July 23rd: Brit. Museum
July 24th:
July 25th: Victoria and Albert
July 26th: Victoria and Albert
July 27th: Victoria and Albert or Brit. Museum
July 28th: Take train to Cambridge: (Stay Here)
July 29th: Research
July 30th: Research
July 31st: Research
August 1st: Research
August 2nd: Research
August 3rd: Research
August 4th: Take train to Derbyshire (Stay Here)
August 5th: Hardwick Hall
August 6th: Arkwright's Cromford Mill, Masson Mill
August 7th: Day trip to Arnold, Nottingham
August 8th: Day trip to Nottingham: Museum of Costume and Textiles,
Castle Museum
August 9th: Day trip to Nottingham: Lace Centre and Lace Hall
August 10th:
August 11th: Day trip to Leicestershire: Wigston Framework Knitters Museum
August 12th: Extra day: see something again or something recommended
August 13th: Take train to Manchester (Stay in the area)
August 14th: Day trip to Lancashire: Queen Street Mill, Saddleworth Museum
August 15th: Day trip to Lancashire: Helmshore Textile Museum
August 16th: Day trip to Yorkshire: Bradford Industrial Museum
August 17th: Day trip to Yorkshire: Calderdale Industrial Museum
August 18th: Extra day: to see something again or something recommended
August 19th: Extra day: to see something again or something recommended
August 20th: Fly back to States
I have written a thirty-five page paper on the origins and causes of the Luddite rebellion for a pre-comps course (History 395). I plan to write my comps on another aspect of the Luddite rebellion, as it is a complicated, challenging, and interesting topic. I was unable to write a large section on workers' pride in my first paper simply because the resources here are limited. I hope to pursue this idea further if I can find relevant sources.
Second, I am a craftswoman, and this interest in the crafts leads me to look at the topic from a worker's perspective, rather than the mill owner or government. Most historians talk about this perspective, but they are not skilled in the crafts and it is clear to me, as a weaver and knitter, that they do not fully understand them. I hope this research opportunity would help me to examine historians' blind spots and biases more analytically in the future.
I hope that by pursuing this project I will be able to draw my knowledge of the fiber arts and history closer together. But most importantly, I hope this project will aid me in my comps and graduate school research. This fellowship would provide me with information and experiences I would not otherwise have access to.