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The Luddites

The Luddites and the Textile Industry during the Industrial Revolution

  • Scope and focus

    • Examines the rise of factory-based production in textiles, the displacement of handloom weavers, the invention of power looms, and the rise of Luddism (1770s–1810s).
    • Key questions: how new machines changed work, wages, and social order; how government and public opinion responded; and what the period reveals about technological change and labor resistance.

  • The Industrial Revolution: context for the Luddites

    • The shift from manual, household production to centralized factories transformed labor, capital, and