 |
| Full dress for December 1798. |
My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World (January issue) - on mule-spinning - marks the beginning of my new series on the growing mechanization of Britain's industries during Austen's era.
The Industrial Revolution affected not just the workers who were the 'shock troops' of the Revolution, but also the way that Jane and her family - and the characters in her novels - lived. I'm really enjoying writing this series, and I hope that you enjoy it, too! 
Illustrations
Above:
‘Full dress for December 1798’. The Lady’s Monthly Museum, Vol.1, Vernor & Hood, London, December 1798. Author’s collection.
Right:
‘Mule’ for spinning cotton. Child workers ‘pieced’ together broken threads, and cleaned cotton waste from under the machine. Charles Knight, Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts, Vol. 1, London Printing and Publishing Co., c.1858. Author’s collection.
One unusual aspect of the industrial revolution, but one which Jane Austen was very well aware of, was the way in which industrial sites became tourist attractions.
ReplyDeleteIn her tour with the Gardiners, Elizabeth had visited Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, and Birmingham before she reached Pemberley. In Birmingham the great attraction was Matthew Boulton's Soho works, it was so popular that at some times there was a person employed to take visitors on 'factory tours'.