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3 - Cottonopolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2020

Barbara Hahn
Barbara Hahn
Affiliation:
Texas Tech University
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Summary

Nicknamed Cottonopolis, Manchester was the city most closely associated with the Industrial Revolution, as it became first the manufacturing center of cotton cloth in England and then the marketing center for its surrounding hinterland villages. Local history, from canal infrastructure and legal provisions to the technical choices its people made, shaped the technological paths and outcomes of industrialization. Extending the Industrial Revolution story beyond individual machines to “Cottonopolis” also supplies links between the industrial prowess of Manchester and the slave factories in Africa and plantations of North America, as well as to the cotton industry of India, to demonstrate the reverberations between technological change and its widening contexts. Cottonopolis describes Manchester in the Industrial Revolution, and links local history to global processes.

Keywords

CottonManchesterCanalsSteam Engine HistoryJames WattTriangular TradeAtlantic WorldIndustrial RevolutionSlave Trade
Type
Chapter
Information
Technology in the Industrial Revolution , pp. 90 - 119
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Suggested Readings

Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.Google Scholar
Bowen, H. V. The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Foner, Laura. Slavery in the New World: A Reader in Comparative History. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1969.Google Scholar
Honeyman, Katrina. Child Workers in England, 1780–1820: Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force. Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.Google Scholar
Humphries, Jane. Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inikori, Joseph E. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Kidd, Alan, and Wyke, Terry, eds. Manchester: Making the Modern City. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Maw, Peter. Transport and the Industrial City: Manchester and the Canal Age, 1750–1850. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Williams, Mike, and with Farnie, D. A. Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester. Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing, 1992.Google Scholar

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  • Cottonopolis
  • Barbara Hahn, Texas Tech University
  • Book: Technology in the Industrial Revolution
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316900864.004
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  • Cottonopolis
  • Barbara Hahn, Texas Tech University
  • Book: Technology in the Industrial Revolution
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316900864.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Cottonopolis
  • Barbara Hahn, Texas Tech University
  • Book: Technology in the Industrial Revolution
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316900864.004
Available formats
×