Lancashire Cotton Operatives and Work, 1900-1950

This title was first published in 2003. In this study, Alan Fowler takes an in-depth look at the Lancashire cotton industry in the first half of the twentieth century through the prism of its workers, their families and organisations. It is their experiences above all that illuminate the history of the cotton industry, and how it came to change the face of Britain through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Crucial to the history of the Lancashire cotton operatives were the collective organisations they established which forced employers and government to treat with them.

Alan Fowler

Contents: Preface; Introduction: The rise and fall of King Cotton; Lancashire cotton operatives: trade union organisation 1900-1914; Family, factory and leisure in Lancashire; Lancashire cotton operatives in depression 1914-1939; Cotton trade unions and politics; Health and safety in the cotton industry, with Lesley Fowler; Lancashire cotton operatives in war, austerity and decline; References and bibliography; Index.