Life's Battles in Temperance Armour

Life's Battles in Temperance Armour
Author: Thomas Whittaker
Publisher: Gale and the British Library
Total Pages: 410
Release: 1884
Genre:
ISBN:

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1884 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXXIV. FAITH AND PHYSIC. THAT numbers of men abstain from intoxicating liquors who are but little if at all influenced by Bible teaching needs no proof. They have no faith in the drink, and wishing to make the best of this life they take care of the present.. Numbers more abstain who have faith in the drink, but believing themselves called upon to abstain from things lawful and useful in themselves that they may be useful to others, they practise what to them is a considerable self-denial. In either of these motives there is sufficient reason and abundant vitality to keep alive the practice of teetotalism. There is, however, yet another class, and not by any means a small one. These not only believe the drink to be dangerous, but worthless, and they have the clearest and most abiding conviction that both Church and State are called upon to take hold with no gloved hand of this delusion to man and enemy to God: of that number I am one. That men are influenced by different reasons and act from different motives is no new thing, and our platform is broad enough for all. It is therefore a needless and meddlesome interference with individual liberty to ask for reasons and question motives. It is enough that the action in itself is right. We have from the first been more or less subject to amendments and improvements, but they none of them change our nature, and never will. We differ in our form of thought, as we do in our form of face, and as we agree to differ in the one why should we not do so in the other'? As temperance teachers we have nothing to do with motives; if it were so, there would be plenty to trouble us in connection with the working of the different societies: those concerned have thought it wise in this way to put forth their strength, a...

Bread Winner

Bread Winner
Author: Emma Griffin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300252099

The overlooked story of how ordinary women and their husbands managed financially in the Victorian era – and why so many struggled despite increasing national prosperityNineteenth century Britain saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in real wages. But not everyone shared in the nation’s wealth. Unable to earn a sufficient income themselves, working-class women were reliant on the ‘breadwinner wage’ of their husbands. When income failed, or was denied or squandered by errant men, families could be plunged into desperate poverty from which there was no escape.Emma Griffin unlocks the homes of Victorian England to examine the lives – and finances – of the people who lived there. Drawing on over 600 working-class autobiographies, including more than 200 written by women, Bread Winner changes our understanding of daily life in Victorian Britain.

Liberty's Dawn

Liberty's Dawn
Author: Emma Griffin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2013-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300151802

DIVThis remarkable book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class. The Industrial Revolution brought not simply misery and poverty. On the contrary, Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom./divDIV /divDIVThis rich personal account focuses on the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, rather than its economic and political histories. In the tradition of best-selling books by Liza Picard, Judith Flanders, and Jerry White, Griffin gets under the skin of the period and creates a cast of colorful characters, including factory workers, miners, shoemakers, carpenters, servants, and farm laborers./div

Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution

Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution
Author: Jane Humphries
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2010-06-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139489283

This is a unique account of working-class childhood during the British industrial revolution, first published in 2010. Using more than 600 autobiographies written by working men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jane Humphries illuminates working-class childhood in contexts untouched by conventional sources and facilitates estimates of age at starting work, social mobility, the extent of apprenticeship and the duration of schooling. The classic era of industrialisation, 1790–1850, apparently saw an upsurge in child labour. While the memoirs implicate mechanisation and the division of labour in this increase, they also show that fatherlessness and large subsets, common in these turbulent, high-mortality and high-fertility times, often cast children as partners and supports for mothers struggling to hold families together. The book offers unprecedented insights into child labour, family life, careers and schooling. Its images of suffering, stoicism and occasional childish pleasures put the humanity back into economic history and the trauma back into the industrial revolution.

The Happiness of the British Working Class

The Happiness of the British Working Class
Author: Jamie L. Bronstein
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2023-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1503633853

For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedonic pleasure, foster and deepen social relationships, drive individuals to self-improvement, and lead them to look back over their lives and evaluate whether they were well-lived. However, not all working-class autobiographers shared the same concepts or valorizations of happiness, as variables such as geography, gender, political affiliation, and social and economic mobility often influenced the way they defined and experienced their emotional lives. The Happiness of the British Working Class employs and analyzes over 350 autobiographies of individuals in England, Scotland, and Ireland to explore the sources of happiness of British working people born before 1870. Drawing from careful examinations of their personal narratives, Jamie L. Bronstein investigates the ways in which working people thought about the good life as seen through their experiences with family and friends, rewarding work, interaction with the natural world, science and creativity, political causes and religious commitments, and physical and economic struggles. Informed by the history of emotions and the philosophical and social-scientific literature on happiness, this book reflects broadly on the industrial-era working-class experience in an era of immense social and economic change.