In the early decades of British industrialization, the ill-health of textile factory
workers attracted considerable public interest and provoked discussion and debate
among a growing number of medical men, operatives, manufacturers, and social and
political commentators. Guided by previous studies of the “framing” of disease, this
dissertation examines how such ill-health was conceived, designated and responded to in
the period from 1784 to 1833.
The dissertation reveals that workers themselves held a relatively constant view
of their condition. In the early part of the nineteenth century, they drew attention to a
variety of ailments and throughout the period they saw a clear link between their
maladies and the conditions of their labour. By contrast, medical understanding shifted
significantly, and as it traced a course more or less at odds with that of popular
comprehension, the nature and causes of worker suffering were substantially redefined.
In the 1780s and 1790s, doctors identified the illness of factory labourers as
“low, nervous fever,” an acute contagious disorder generated by the crowding and
confinement of human bodies. A generation later, in the period from 1815 to 1819, the
ill-health of mill workers was conceptualized, by a portion of the medical community,
as “debility,” a poorly-understood state of constitutional feebleness attributed to aspects
of machine work. In the early 1830s, medical authorities regarded factory workers’
sickness primarily as “digestive disease” and located its source in habits and diet.
The reconceptualization of worker ill-health yielded an ultimately optimistic
assessment of the consequences of industrial growth, failing to offer strong support to
demands for legislative restriction of factory operation. It also served to sanction
changing social relations through providing evidence of the physical and moral
distinctness of the manufacturing population.
As medical theory altered, so, too, did practices of relief and assistance. While
mill owners, and doctors, became increasingly unwilling to assume responsibility for
the well-being of the industrial workforce, operatives engaged ever more extensively in
practices of self-help. The expansion of the textile industry, however, ensured the
continuation of their affliction and incapacity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7536 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Paterson, Carla Susan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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