This book describes the working and living conditions of workers, especially those in the cutlery and tools, steel and engineering trades, in Sheffield between 1850 and 1939. Housing and public heath, real wages and cyclical variations in wages, and trade union history, including the well-known outrages, receive particular attention. Sheffield produced for a world market and its prosperity was affected by world economic conditions, the rise of rival producers overseas and the armaments booms of the two world wars among other factors. As the largest industrial city in Britain, with a high proportion of well-organized skilled male workers, Sheffield became the first major city in Britain to be controlled by Labour and the influence of its social structure on local and national political representation, first through the Liberal Party and then through Labour, forms a major theme.