Oct 9 1779 1779 The Luddite riots being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning cotton.

1779

The Luddite riots being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning cotton.

Endeavour Volume 22, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 152–155 The ‘lessons’ of Luddism Adrian Randall1 doi:10.1016/S0160-9327(98)01145-4 Get rights and content Abstract Hostility towards machinery was more widespread in the early Industrial Revolution than is customarily supposed and machine-breakers themselves were far from the mindless opponents of change they are often portrayed as being. Luddism marked not merely a turning point in the take-up of machinery but also a significant moment in the wider debate between conflicting political economies. It also crystallized a watershed in the attitudes of the State towards industrial protest and industrial regulation. 1 Adrian Randall Is Professor of English Social History at the University of Birmingham. He has published extensively on the subjects of popular protest, resistance to new technology and on labour relations in the Industrial Revolution. He is the author of Before the Luddites, editor and co-author of Markets, Market Culture and Popular Protest in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, and co-author of Moral Economy and Popular Protest: Crowds, Conflict and Authority (forthcoming). Copyright © 1998 Published by Elsevier Ltd.