Industrial Work and Workers 557

of Manchester, which,

like a citadel, looks threat­

eningly down from

behind its high walls and

parapets on the hilltop,

upon the working peo­

ple’s quarter below.

The “cheerful” school of
historiography has argued
that the Industrial Revolu­
tion, at least during the
first half of the century, by The satanic ml|ls of Manchester,
increasing employment and
lowering the price of some
goods, almost immediately improved the way ordinary people lived. By
contrast, other historians have embraced the view that industrial capital­
ism was making conditions of life even worse for workers and their families
as the number of people depending on wage labor increased faster than did
job possibilities and pay.
During the first half of the century, the incomes of many artisans, as
well as women workers, fell as trades were flooded with the end of guild
restrictions and increasing mechanized production. Women workers such
as spinners were often the first to experience unemployment because of
the new technology. Wages in many industries were extremely volatile;
boom periods could come and go with numbing suddenness. Even good
years were broken in many industries by “dead seasons” when there was no
work. The gap between the rich and the poor increased. In England, many
middle-class heads of household earned three or four times as much as
even a skilled worker. In the late 1820s in Paris, more than three-quarters
of people who died left virtually nothing to heirs, because they had next to
nothing and, in any case, they could not afford to have a will drawn up by a

lawyer.

On the continent, the poorer a family was, the greater the percentage

of its income that was spent on food, primarily bread. Clothing accounted

for the second largest category of expense, followed by lodging. All other

expenses, including heat, lights tools, supplies, and recreation, had to come

out of less than 10 percent of the family income. Most migrants to cities no

longer benefited from the kind of community support they had received

during hard times in their villages. Recourse to the neighborhood pawn

shop was part of the experience of the majority of urban working-class fam­

ilies.

English workers tended to be better off than most of their continental

counterparts. Paternalism, the tradition by which employers took some

responsibility for helping their workers by providing some supplementary